The Right Honourable Sir Austen Henry Layard GCB |
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Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | |
In office 12 February 1852 – 21 February 1852 |
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Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister | Lord John Russell |
Preceded by | The Lord Stanley of Alderley |
Succeeded by | Lord Stanley |
In office 15 August 1861 – 26 June 1866 |
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Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister |
The Viscount Palmerston The Earl Russell |
Preceded by | The Lord Wodehouse |
Succeeded by | Edward Egerton |
First Commissioner of Works | |
In office 9 December 1868 – 26 October 1869 |
|
Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
Preceded by | Lord John Manners |
Succeeded by | Acton Smee Ayrton |
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire | |
In office 1877–1880 |
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Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Preceded by | The Marquess of Salisbury |
Succeeded by | The Earl of Dufferin |
Personal details | |
Born |
5 March 1817 Paris, France |
Died |
5 July 1894 (aged 77) London, England |
Nationality | British |
Political party | Liberal |
Spouse(s) | Mary Enid Evelyn Guest |
Sir Austen Henry Layard GCB PC (/ˈɔːstɪn ˈhɛnriː ˈlɛərd/; 5 March 1817 – 5 July 1894) was an English traveller, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Niniveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace reliefs known, and in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal.
Layard was born in Paris, France, to a family of Huguenot descent. His father, Henry Peter John Layard, of the Ceylon Civil Service, was the son of Charles Peter Layard, Dean of Bristol, and grandson of Daniel Peter Layard the physician. Through his mother, Marianne, daughter of Nathaniel Austen, banker, of Ramsgate, his English descent was consolidated. His uncle was Benjamin Austen, a London solicitor and close friend of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1820s and 1830s. Edgar Leopold Layard the ornithologist was his brother.