Boyer was born in 1854 and joined the Royal Navy when he was in his mid 20s. An important English auction house introduced several lots of his paintings as:
. . . a fascinating record of (his) voyages whilst serving in the Royal Navy during the 1870s and early 1880s. They include views in North and South Africa, China, Japan, the Antarctic and Mediterranean. The National Maritime Museum holds four logbooks kept by Boyer on various ships between 1869 and 1876, including HMS Clio. . . A folio of watercolours of Bombay and the surrounding area by Boyer was sold in 1982.
It is relatively easy to find digital copies of many of his watercolours, but only four refer to Gibraltar, all of them recently purchased by the Gibraltar National Museum. Here they are.
The Mole - Gibraltar (1875)
Gibraltar from the Sky Battery (1875)
Boyer has represented the Great Sand Dunes that lay on the east side of the Rock as not much more than a beach. In fact they reached almost half-way up the eastern cliff face.,
Gibraltar from the Gut (1879)
Gibraltar from Queen Isabella's Seat (1875)
This last one seems to have been a copy of an engraving by an unknown artist which he may hsve picked up in Gibraltar. The place was usually referred to at the time as the Queen of Spain Chair. This particular version of the "Chair" was on the summit of the Spanish hill of Sierra Carbonera.
On the 23rd of September 1893 Lieutenant Francis Henry Boyer assumed the rank Commander on the Retired List. He died many years later in 1926.