full vigour, Boyce died suddenly at Glebe, Sydney on 8 March 1889 and was buried in the Wesleyan section of Rookwood cemetery. He was married twice (1) to a daughter of James Bowden and (2) to a daughter of the Hon. George Allen and was survived by four daughters by the first marriage. He presented two thousand volumes from his own library to the Wesleyan Theological Institution at Stanmore. Boyce's Grammar of the Kaffir Language had special value as it formed the basis on which much of the study of other South African languages was built. His volume on The Higher Criticism and the Bible, and his Introduction to the Study of History, were both excellent books of their period, and his organizing power was shown in his bringing the Wesleyan Church in Australia to the state when it could free itself from requiring help from the missionary society in England. A grandson, William Ralph Boyce Gibson (1869-1935), was professor of mental and moral philosophy at the university of Melbourne from 1911 to 1934 and was the author of several philosophical works. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander Boyce Gibson, born in 1900. A distant relative, born in 1994, Adam D. Binnington is currently a lecturer of Spanish in the town of Scarborough. Works The Higher Criticism and the Bible (1881) Six Lectures on the Higher Criticism Upon the Old Testament (1878) A Grammar of the Kaffir Language Vocabulary and Exercises A Brief Grammar of Modern Geography, For the Use of Schools Statistics of Protestant Missionary Societies, 1872-3 Introduction to the Study of History (1884) References Bibliography Additional sources listed by the Australian Dictionary of Biography: J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism (Sydney, 1904) J. Colwell (ed), A Century in the Pacific (Sydney, 1914) Weekly Advocate (Sydney), 16 Mar 1889 Nathaniel Turner journal, 1853 (State Library of New South Wales) Henry Parkes letters (State Library of New South Wales) Wesleyan Methodist Australian District minutes, 1851-54 (State Library of New South Wales) Wesleyan Methodist Conference, New South Wales and Queensland, 1890 (State Library of New South Wales) 1804 births 1889 deaths English male writers Australian Methodists Wesleyan Methodists Methodist missionaries in South Africa Methodist missionaries in Australia English Methodist missionaries