David Boyle was born on May 1, 1842, in Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland.

He was a Canadian blacksmith, teacher, archaeologist, museum curator, and historian. Boyle arrived in Canada from Scotland in 1856 and apprenticed to a blacksmith. Upon finishing his apprenticeship in 1860, he secured a blacksmith’s job in Elora, Ontario in order to attend grammar school. He graduated in 1864 and became a teacher. He was a gifted pedagogue who followed what were then "radical child-centered theories" of Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi. After six years of rural teaching, he obtained the position of principal of the Elora Public School in 1871. He also contributed to the foundation of the Elora Natural History Society in 1874 for the purpose of generating wider public interest in science, through a program of field trips, lectures, and publications. He was curator of the Canadian Institute Museum (1884-1896) and the Ontario Provincial Museum (1886-1911). He cultivated a core of loyal collectors across southern and central Ontario who assisted him in archaeological digs and in collecting artifacts for the museums. He was also the Secretary of the Ontario Historical Society. In 1898, Boyle began to conduct ethnographic fieldwork at the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Brantford, Ontario. Between 1887 and 1911, he published “Annual Archaeological Reports for Ontario”, Canada's first journal dedicated to archaeology. By the turn of the century, Boyle had achieved recognition as Canada’s pre-eminent archeologist. In 1902, he became a founding member of the American Anthropological Association and he was appointed to the editorial board of the new American Anthropologist. In 1908, he was the third recipient of the Cornplanter Medal (an award for scholastic and other contributions to the betterment of knowledge of the Iroquois people). The University of Toronto acknowledged his accomplishments in 1909 by conferring an LL.D. upon him.

He died on February 11, 1911, in Toronto, Ontario.