The Right Hon. Sir Henry Austen Layard, G.C.B., D.C.L. FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. APRIL 15, 1885-JULY 5, 1894. The closing words of the President's Address, breathing that spirit of indomitable energy and enthusiasm which characterised him through life up to the very end, have now a pathetic interest for all members of the Society, and especially for those who, in listening to them, felt constrained, though hoping against hope, to persuade themselves that what they heard was indeed the prelude to their President's further work, and not his last farewell. Yet so it was, and in less than two months all was over and the Society was left to mourn an irreparable loss. Henry Austen Layard was born at Paris on March 5, 1817, his father being an Englishman, but of Huguenot origin and connected with many distinguished Huguenot families. Born in France and brought up in Italy, Layard passed his early life amid surroundings forming a curious counterpart to those of his closing years, which were destined to be so largely spent at Venice and in elucidating the history of France in its Huguenot aspect. At sixteen he left Italy for England, and the future explorer and diplomatist began life in the uncongenial atmosphere of a lawyer's office, being articled to his uncle, Mr. Austen, a London solicitor. Useful as this training was to him (and Layard was not the man to neglect its advantages or disparage its value), it necessarily failed to satisfy his spirit of adventure and natural aptitude for widely different pursuits, and in a very few years we find him turning his steps eastwards to begin that remarkable and stirring series of travels, adventures and discoveries, with which he has made all the world familiar by his successive volumes on Nineveh, Babylon . བལ s. d. 19 1 5 297 3 6 11 11 ,, Cost of Transcribing Threadneedle Street Registers, (continued) , &c. Fire Insurance (2 years 2 14 and found correct, E. CARRINGTON OUVRY The Right Hon. Sir Henry Austen Layard, G.C.B., D.C.L. FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. APRIL 15, 1885-JULY 5, 1894. The closing words of the President's Address, breathing that spirit of indomitable energy and enthusiasm which characterised him through life up to the very end, have now a pathetic interest for all members of the Society, and especially for those who, in listening to them, felt constrained, though hoping against hope, to persuade themselves that what they heard was indeed the prelude to their President's further work, and not his last farewell. Yet so it was, and in less than two months all was over and the Society was left to mourn an irreparable loss. Henry Austen Layard was born at Paris on March 5, 1817, his father being an Englishman, but of Huguenot origin and connected with many distinguished Huguenot families. Born in France and brought up in Italy, Layard passed his early life amid surroundings forming a curious counterpart to those of his closing years, which were destined to be so largely spent at Venice and in elucidating the history of France in its Huguenot aspect. At sixteen he left Italy for England, and the future explorer and diplomatist began life in the uncongenial atmosphere of a lawyer's office, being articled to his uncle, Mr. Austen, a London solicitor. Useful as this training was to him (and Layard was not the man to neglect its advantages or disparage its value), it necessarily failed to satisfy his spirit of adventure and natural aptitude for widely different pursuits, and in a very few years we find him turning his steps eastwards to begin that remarkable and stirring series of travels, adventures and discoveries, with which he has made all the world familiar by his successive volumes on Nineveh, Babylon |