Layard, Sir Austen Henry

English traveller and diplomatist, born at Paris; spent his boyhood in Italy, and studied law in London; between 1845 and 1847 he conducted excavations at the ruins of Nineveh, securing for the British Museum its famous specimens of A yrian art, and on his return published works on "Nineveh and its Remains" and "Monuments of Nineveh"; he received the freedom of London, Oxford gave him D.C.L., and Aberdeen University chose him for Lord Rector; entering Parliament in 1852, he sat for Aylesbury and for South wark, and was Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs 1861-06; in 1809 he was sent as amba ador to Madrid, and from 1877 till 1880 represented England at Constantinople, where his philo-Turkish sympathies provoked much comment; he was a noted linguist (1817-1894).