William Luard

Admiral Sir William Garnham Luard, (7 April 1820 – 19 May 1910) was a British Royal Navy officer.

Naval career Born in 1820, he was the eldest son of a local magistrate, William Wright Luard J.P., D.L. of Witham Lodge, Witham, Essex (formerly of Hatfield Peverel Priory) and Charlotte Garnham, only child of Thomas Garnham of Belchamp Hall (Felsham Hall in Lovejoy) in Suffolk. The Luards were a prominent family of Protestant Huguenot merchants who had fled to England from Caen, Normandy in the late 17th century as part of the mass exodus of Huguenots from France to England that followed the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

After a distinguished career as a naval officer, including as captain and commander of and HMS Conqueror, he served as superintendent of the Sheerness Dockyard and the Malta Dockyard. From 1882 to 1885, he was President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. and admiral in 1885.

A staunch Liberal and supporter of Prime Minister William Gladstone, Luard retired to his estate in Essex where he served as a justice of the peace and as an active member of the court of Quarter Sessions. He died in 1910 as a result of injuries sustained in a carriage accident. His funeral cortege in his home town of Witham, Essex attracted thousands of mourners.