Henry Layard

Henry Layard (1817-94) was a traveller and self-taught archaeologist, art historian, collector, and author, best known for his popular work Nineveh and its Remains (2 vols, 1848-49) (a further expedition appeared in print in 1853).   His uncle was Benjamin Austen, a London solicitor and close friend of Disraeli in the 1820s and ’30s. He became a Liberal MP from Aylesbury, Bucks, 1852-57, and Southwark, 1861-66. He retired from public life in 1880 and lived mostly in Venice. His Autobiography appeared in 1903.