Edgar Leopold Layard
| Edgar Leopold Layard CMG, FZS, MBOU | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
23 July 1824 Florence, Italy |
| Died |
1 January 1900 (aged 75) Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Diplomat |
| Known for | |
| Notable work | The Birds of South Africa |
| Spouse(s) |
Barbara Anne Calthrop, Jane Catherine Blackett |
| Parent(s) | Henry Peter John Layard |
| Relatives | Sir Austen Henry Layard (brother) |
Edgar Leopold Layard CMG FZS MBOU, (23 July 1824 – 1 January 1900) was a British diplomat and a naturalist mainly interested in ornithology.
Life
Born in Florence, Italy, to a family of Huguenot descent, Layard was the youngest of seven sons (two of whom died in infancy[1]) of Henry Peter John Layard[2] of the Ceylon Civil Service (the son of Charles Peter Layard, dean of Bristol, and grandson of Daniel Peter Layard the physician) with his wife Marianne, a daughter of Nathaniel Austen, banker, of Ramsgate. Through her, he was partly of Spanish descent. His uncle was Benjamin Austen, a London solicitor and close friend of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1820s and 1830s. His oldest brother was the archaeologist and politician Sir Austen Henry Layard.
Layard spent ten years in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he studied the local fauna with Robert Templeton (1802–1892). In 1854, he went to the Cape Colony as a civil servant working in the service of the governor George Edward Grey (1812–1898). In 1855, during his spare time, Layard was a curator in the South African Museum, and was succeeded by Roland Trimen. After this, he had posts in Brazil, where he collected birds for Arthur Hay (1824–1878).
Edgar Layard administered the government of Fiji from 1874 to 1875 and was honorary British Consul at Noumea, New Caledonia from 1876.[2] Layard was appointed as an arbitrator to the British and Portuguese Commission at the Cape of Good Hope in 1862.[3] Edgar Layard and his son, Edgar Leopold Calthrop Layard (referred to in the literature as either E.L.C. Layard or Leopold Layard to differentiate him from his father), were active collectors in this region, mainly of bird specimens. Between 1870 and 1881, they visited Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, New Britain and Norfolk Island. Aside from the South African material, the bird collections they made from their 'home base' of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands are the most scientifically important. The Layards sent material to William Sharp MacLeay in Sydney, but also to many other ornithologists. Their specimens have become very scattered. Many went to the British Museum in London. Others went to Henry Baker Tristram, and are now in the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside in Liverpool, England.
In 1887, Layard published The Birds of South Africa, where he described 702 species. This work was later updated by Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847–1909).
Layard's first wife, Barbara Anne Calthrop (died 1886), whom he married in 1845,[2] is commemorated in the specific epithet of Layard's parakeet (Psittacula calthropae) and he named the brown-breasted flycatcher (Muscicapa muttui) after his Tamil cook, Muttu who he considered as his "fidus Achates" or faithful follower.[4]
Layard died in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England.
Engraved oyster shells once belonging to Layard were exhibited on the Antiques Roadshow on 29 May 2011.
A species of lizard endemic to Sri Lanka, Nessia layardi (originally placed in the genus Acontias) was named after him by Edward Frederick Kelaart.[5]
References
- ↑ Layard, E.L. Unpublished autobiography. MS at Blacker-Wood library, McGill University, Canada.
- 1 2 3 Mennell, Philip (1892). "
Layard, Edgar Leopold". The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co. Wikisource - ↑ Anon. (26 July 1862) Illustrated London News 41(1156):114
- ↑ Layard, Edgar Leopold (1854). "Notes on the ornithology of Ceylon, collected during an eight years' residence in the Island". The annals and magazine of natural history 14: 110.
- ↑ Kelaart, E.F. (1854). "Descriptions of new or little-known species of reptiles collected in Ceylon". Annals and Magazine of Natural History 13: 25–31.
Sources
- Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins (2003). Whose Bird? Common Bird Names and the People They Commemorate. Yale University Press (New Haven and London).
- Maurice Boubier (1925) Evolution of ornithology. Bookshop Felix Alcan (Paris), New scientific collection: II + 308 p.
- Barbara Mearns & Richard Mearns (1998). The Bird Collectors. Academic Press (London): xvii + 472 p.
External links
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- Ibis Jubilee Supplement 1908
- Images from the revised edition of his Birds of South Africa.
- iziko south african museum: Edgar Leopold Layard
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