1840). In order to secure the convertibility of bank-notes, he proposed to separate the departments of the Bank of England, and to fix a ratio between the amount of notes issued and the reserve maintained. His views, expressed both before the committee and in a pamphlet published in the same year, were again received with much opposition, but ultimately they prevailed, and the Bank Act of 1844, substantially based on his principles, passed into law. He was a witness before the committee of 1848 on the suspension of that act, and in 1857 before another committee on the same subject, and, as before, he subsequently published his evidence. During this period he had issued numerous pamphlets on financial questions, and was known to be a close adviser of at least one chancellor of the exchequer, his friend Sir Charles Wood (1846–52). Though his influence upon all the financial side of current politics was known to be great, it was in reality greater probably than the public ever knew. He was an active and successful opponent of decimal coinage, and a supporter of the commission for poor-law reform. He was chairman of the Irish famine committee of 1847, a leading promoter of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and an active member of the volunteer commission in 1860. In 1850 he became a trustee of the National Gallery, and was raised to the peerage on 5 March 1860 as Baron Overstone of Overstone and Fotheringay. On 8 June 1854 he was created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford. He married in 1829 Harriet, third daughter of Ichabod Wright of Mapperley Hall, Nottinghamshire. He died at his house, 2 Carlton Gardens, London, 17 Nov. 1883, leaving one surviving child, Harriet Sarah, wife of Colonel Loyd-Lindsay, afterwards Baron Wantage, who inherited great part of his wealth. His personal estate was sworn under 2,100,000l. In 1857, with the assistance of J. R. M'Culloch, he republished a valuable series of tracts on financial subjects, such as national debt and sinking fund, currency and banking, economical tracts and commercial tracts, and his own financial tracts were published in 1858.
[Annual Register, 1883; Times, 19 Nov. 1883, 4 Jan. 1884; Saturday Review, 24 Nov. 1883; M'Culloch's Theory and Practice of Banking; Lawson's History of Banking, ed. 1850, p. 233; W. G. Humphry's Memorial Sermon on Lord Overstone; Edinb. Rev. cvii. 248.]
LUARD, HENRY RICHARDS (1825–1891), registrary of the university of Cambridge, eldest son of Henry Luard, West India merchant, was born in London on 17 Aug. 1825. He was educated at Cheam under Dr. Charles Mayo, and between 1841 and 1843 at King's College, London. He commenced residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1843. In 1846 he obtained a college scholarship, and in 1847 graduated B.A. He was fourteenth in the first class of the mathematical tripos, a lower place than he had expected, but he was in bad health at the time of the examination. In 1849 he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College. He proceeded M.A. in 1850, B.D. in 1875, and D.D. in 1878. He was for a short time mathematical lecturer in Trinity College, and junior bursar from 1853 to 1861. In 1855 he was ordained deacon and priest, and was vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge, from 1860 to 1887. In January 1862 he was elected registrary of the university, in succession to the Rev. Joseph Romilly, and on 19 June in the same year he married Louisa Calthorpe, youngest daughter of George Hodson, archdeacon of Stafford and canon of Lichfield, by whom he had one son, who died in June 1891. In 1875 he was elected honorary fellow of King's College, London. Luard was a high churchman of the old school, strong in his own convictions, but tolerant of those who differed from him. He was an active parish clergyman, zealous in visiting the poor, and an eloquent preacher. He found St. Mary's still encumbered by the hideous eastern gallery, nicknamed Golgotha, in which the vice-chancellor and heads of colleges sat; but he induced the senate to accept a plan which included the removal of both eastern and western galleries, and the reseating of the nave and chancel. These works were carried out in 1863, and the church was reopened for service on 2 Feb. 1864.
Though Luard took his degree in mathematics, he was a good classical scholar, and possessed a singularly wide and accurate knowledge of the labours of the older critics. Among these his hero was Porson. He contributed a ‘Life of Porson’ to the ‘Cambridge Essays,’ 1857, and to the ninth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and he bequeathed his extensive collection of ‘Porsoniana’ to the library of Trinity College. As registrary of the university he was courteous, accurate, and laborious. He rearranged the documents under his charge, binding each group in a volume, with a separate index of his own making. These indices were afterwards united so as to present a complete clue to the whole body of records. He published one of these indices in 1870: ‘A Chronological List of the Graces, Documents, and other papers in the University Registry which concern the University Library.’
Besides these continuous occupations Luard edited for the Master of the Rolls' series a
