Daniel Peter Layard

Daniel Peter Layard, (1721–1802) was an English physician and midwife.

Biography Daniel Peter Layard was the son of Pierre Raymond de Layard (1666-1747), a Huguenot of good parentage of Monflanquin in Guienne (Lot et Garonne), who fled from France following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Pierre Raymond came to England as a member of the Corps of Noble Cadets of William III, and rose to the rank of Major in the British army in 1710, at which time he was in General Vezey's Regiment of Foot. Having become naturalized British in 1713, he settled in Canterbury, and married, at the French Protestant chapel at the Savoy Chapel in London in February 1715, to a much younger wife, Marie Anne la Crozé. They had several children, most of whom died and were buried at St Alphege, Canterbury. Daniel Peter Delayard was born 28 March and baptized 8 April 1720 at the French Huguenot chapel of Des Grecs, Crown Street, Westminster. His father died in Westminster in 1747. His mother lived down to 1773, and died testate in London.

Layard graduated Doctor of Medicine at Reims University on 9 March 1742. On 9 August of the following year (as Surgeon, of St Anne's Westminster), he married Suzanna Henrietta Boisragon at the Savoy chapel. In April 1747 he was appointed physician-accoucheur at Middlesex Hospital, but shortly afterwards he resigned on account of ill health and travelled abroad.

In 1750 Layard settled at Huntingdon, practising there for twelve years. On 3 July 1752 he was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians (now the Royal College of Physicians of London). In c. 1762 he returned to London, where he soon obtained an extensive practice as an accoucheur.

His son Charles had become Dean of Bristol.

Works Layard contributed papers to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and published:

An Essay on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of the Contagious Distemper among the Horned Cattle in these Kingdoms (London, 1757) An Essay on the Bite of a Mad Dog (London, 1762) An Account of the Somersham Water in the County of Huntingdon (London, 1767) Pharmacopœia in usum Gravidarum Puerperarum (London, 1776)

Family Layard was the father of Charles Peter Layard (born 1748; successively Prebendary of Bangor Cathedral, in 1793 Prebendary of Worcester Cathedral, and in 1800 Dean of Bristol; died 1808), and great-grandfather of Austen Henry Layard. He was the great-great-grandfather of Nina Frances Layard, and the great-great-great-grandfather of John Willoughby Layard.