Born at New Ross, County Wexford, 5 February 1772, he was son of Humphrey Lloyd, himself the son of the Review Bartholomew Lloyd of the Abbey House of New Ross. His father died while he was still a boy, and an uncle, the Review
John Lloyd, rector of Ferns and Kilbride, to whose care he had been given, also died shortly, so that he was left to struggle for himself.
In 1790 he gained first scholarship, in 1792 graduated Bachelor of Arts, and in 1796 obtained a junior fellowship. He graduated Master of Arts
He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1787 as a pensioner. in the same year, Bachelor of Divinity in 1805, and Doctor of Divinity in 1808. In 1813 Lloyd was appointed Erasmus Smith"s professor of mathematics on the resignation of William Magee, and in 1822, Erasmus Smith"s professor of natural and experimental philosophy in succession to William Davenport. In 1821 and again in 1823 and 1825 he was elected regius professor of Greek in the university, and in 1823 and again in 1827 Archbishop King"s lecturer in divinity.
In 1831 he was elected Provost of the college, in succession to Samuel Kyle who became bishop of Cork and Ross.
Trinity"s magnetic observatory was founded through Lloyd"s influence. In 1835 he was appointed president of the Royal Irish Academy, and in the same year acted as president of the British Association meeting at Dublin.
His inaugural address dealt mainly with "the correspondence of the objects of science with divine revelation". Lloyd died suddenly of apoplexy, 24 November 1837, and was buried in the college chapel.
The Lloyd Exhibitions were founded by subscription in 1839 in his memory.
A marble bust of him by Thomas Kirk stood in the library of Trinity College. The eldest was Humphrey Lloyd. The diplomat Charles Dalton Clifford Lloyd was a grandson, son of Colonel Robert Clifford Lloyd and Annie Savage.
In both chairs he made a radical change in the methods of teaching, and was the first to introduce French mathematical innovations into Trinity College.
