Edgar Leopold LAYARD C.M.G.

  General Notes:

From Victor <victorj@sympatico.ca> research
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9K4W-VJ7
http://www.thekingscandlesticks.com/webs/pedigrees/27183.html

The Dictionary of Australasian Biography
Layard, Edgar Leopold, C.M.G.,
Son of the late Henry Peter John Layard, of the Ceylon Civil Service, and younger brother of the Right Hon. Sir Austen Henry Layard, was born in 1824; went to Ceylon in 1846; was appointed secretary to the junior judge, and called to the bar. He subsequently held various positions in the public service of the colony till 1855, when he resigned, and entered the Civil Service of the Cape of Good Hope, where in 1861 he was appointed private secretary to Sir George Grey , the Governor, whom he accompanied in the same capacity to New Zealand, retaining his rank in the Cape Service. In 1862 he was appointed Arbitrator to the mixed British and Portuguese Commission at the Cape of Good Hope for suppressing the slave trade, and Arbitrator in the mixed court at the Cape of Good Hope, between Great Britain and the United States, for suppressing the African slave trade. He was promoted to be judge in 1867; appointed Consul at Para in 1871, and for Fiji and the Tonga Islands in 1873. In August of the latter year he was appointed, in conjunction with Commodore Goodenough , to investigate the proposed cession of Fiji to the British Crown, and in March 1874 they presented a report embodying the terms of cession offered by the native chiefs and approved of by the European inhabitants. These, however, proved unacceptable, and the annexation was subsequently negotiated by Sir Hercules Robinson . Mr. Layard was administrator of the government of Fiji from 1874 to 1875, and has been Consul and Lloyd's Agent in New Caledonia since 1876. He married first, in 1845, Barbara Anne, daughter of the late Rev. John Calthrop, vicar of Gosberton, who died in 1886; secondly, in 1887, Jane Catherine, daughter of the late Gen. Robert Blackett, H.E.I.C.S., and widow of James A. Graham, B.C.S. Mr. Layard was created C.M.G. in 1875.

Note: He was the 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.

Edgar married Barbara Anne CALTHROP, daughter of Rev. John CALTHROP and Barbara BONNER, on 18 Oct 1845 in Isleham, Cambridgeshire, England. (Barbara Anne CALTHROP was born about 1814 in Of, Gosberton, Lincolnshire, England ¹, christened on 17 Jun 1814 in Gosberton, Lincoln, England ¹ and died on 14 Jun 1886 in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England.)

Edgar next married Jane Catharine BLACKALL, daughter of Lieut. Gen. Robert BLACKALL and Elizabeth CHADWICK, on 24 Nov 1887 in Sydney, Australia. (Jane Catharine BLACKALL was born on 26 Oct 1831 in Kurnaul, Bengal, India, christened on 30 Nov 1831 in Kurnaul, Bengal, India and died on 9 Sep 1912 in Tiverton, Devon, England.)

  Marriage Notes:

Witnesses of the wedding were Sarah and George Bennett, a very famous physician and naturalist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bennett_(naturalist). Sarah was his 3d wife. And Francis William Austen, a distant relative of the famous British Admiral of the same name and of the writer Jane Austen .