George Somes Layard

George Somes Layard was an English barrister, journalist and man of letters. He was the third son of Sarah and Charles Clement Layard, rector of Combe Hay in Somerset, born at Clifton, Bristol; Nina Frances Layard was his sister. He was educated at Harrow School and Monkton Combe School. Matriculating to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1876, he graduated B.A. in 1881, and was called to the bar that year at the Inner Temple, which he had joined in 1877. He married Eleanor Byng Gribble. The psychologist John Willoughby Layard was their second child.

Family connections

Layard was related to a number of prominent individuals through both his parents. His father was first cousin of Sir Austen Henry Layard, Edgar Leopold Layard, and of Lady Charlotte Guest.
His grandfather Brownlow Villiers Layard was aide-de-camp and afterwards private chaplain to the Duke of Kent, and was the son of a Dean of Bristol and grandson of the accoucheur Daniel Peter Layard. C. C. Layard was also first cousin of Lady Llanover, being the son of Louisa Port, sister of Georgiana, and therefore a descendant of Bernard Granville of Calwich and of Sir Richard Grenville of 'The Revenge'.
Layard's mother Sarah Somes was sister of Samuel Somes and the MP, Joseph Somes. In the 1830s her brothers were the largest ship-owners in London and held contracts for convict shipping to Australia. His sister Nina Layard was a poet, prehistorian, archaeologist and antiquarian who conducted important excavations, and one of the first four women to be admitted as Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Works

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' Portraits of Cruikshank by Himself ' with Marion Harry Spielmann Sir Thomas Lawrence's Letter-bag
' The Headless Horseman: Pierre Lombart's Engraving, Charles or Cromwell? An Amateur Detective
''Catalogue Raisonné of Engraved British Portraits from altered plates''