Nina Frances Layard was an English poet, prehistorian, archaeologist and antiquarian who conducted important excavations, and by winning the respect of contemporary academics helped to establish a role for women in her field of expertise. She was one of the first four women to be admitted as Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, in the first year of admission, and was admitted Fellow of the Linnean Society in the second year of women's admission. In 1921 she was the first woman to be President of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.
Early Life
Nina Layard was born on August 20, 1853 in Essex to Charles Clement and Sarah Layard. She was interested in natural history from a young age and was an enthusiastic collector of eggs and shells as a child. While her only formal education consisted of attendance at a dame-school in Willesden, Middlesex, over the course of her life, she was encouraged in the pursuit of her passions by a number of scholars, including Leonard Jenyns and John Ellor Taylor.
Archaeological Work
Remarkably for the time, Layard directed multiple archaeological excavations. Her first, in 1898, was the Blackfriars monastery, Ipswich. Here she succeeded in locating the foundations walls of the medieval buildings. From 1902-05, she conducted excavations at the paleolithic site of Foxhall Road, arguably her most important contribution to the disciplines of archaeology and prehistory. Layard's work at Foxhall Road provided important evidence for the antiquity of humans, and her analysis of the stone tools discovered there enhanced understandings of the process of stone tool manufacture. In 1906-07, she excavated the Hadleigh Road site, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery under threat from a road-expansion project. Her work here documented 159 graves and their grave goods. The objects recovered were sent to the Ipswich Museum and her work on the site was published by the Society of Antiquaries, although as a women, she herself was not allowed entry into the Society.
Family connections
Nina Layard was the fourth child of Charles Clement Layard and his wife Sarah, née Somes. Her father was first cousin of Sir Austen Henry Layard, Edgar Leopold Layard, and of Lady Charlotte Guest. Nina's 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'. Nina 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. Nina Layard was a sister of the essayist and litterateur George Somes Layard, and therefore the aunt of John Willoughby Layard, psychologist and anthropologist.
