LAYARD, li'ird, Snt Austen Henry, Eng lish traveler and archaeologist: b. Paris, 5 March 1817; d. London, 5 July 1894. He was of a family originally French; was partly edu cated in Italy; began to study law, but gave up this work and entered upon a course of travels in the East. Before he was 23 he had traveled in most of the larger European countries; in 1840 he was on the banks of the Tigris, and be fore the end of his career had "'won distinc tion as a traveler, archeologist, politician, diplo matist and student of the fine In 1845 he began • the excavations in Assyria (q.v.) for which he first became celebrated. The results of his discoveries on the site of •Nineveh (qx.) were published in 1849-53. In 1849 he was ap pointed attaché to the. British embassy at .
stantinople. At first he paid his own, expenses in his researches, but afterward received gen erous assistance from Lord Stratford de Red cliffe, then English Ambassador in Constanti nople, and still later £3,000 voted by- the House of Commons was', used by the trustees of the British Museumbfor continuing Layard's ex cavations. In 1852 he entered Parliament as a
Liberal, and became Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1860-66. He was lord rec tor of the University of Aberdeen, 1855-56. In 1868 he was appointed chief commissioner of works and privy councillor; went to Spain in 1869 as British Ambassador, and 1877-80 was Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. In 1878 he Was created K.C.B., and was made •a foreign member of the Institute of France in 1890. He wrote much on the history of painting, was a leading spirit in the Arundel Society and a trustee of the National Gallery. His writings include 'Nineveh and Its Remains' (1849); 'Nineveh and Babylon> (1853) ; 'Monuments of Nineveh' (1849-53) ;•'Inscriptions in the Cuneiform Character from the Assyrian Monu ments' (1851); 'Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia' (1887, 1894). Consult his 'Autobiography' (1902).