Born 13 October 1862, the second son of the Rev B G Luard, Rector of Birch, near Colchester, Essex, and Clara Isabella Sandford Bramston, his wife. Another son, Canon E P Luard, succeeded their father as Rector of Birch. He was educated at Malvern College, was a scholar of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and took first-class honours in the first part of the Natural Sciences Tripos 1884. He then entered St Thomas's Hospital, where he later served as house physician. In 1890 he took the Cambridge Diploma in Public Health, and on 31 March 1890 he was commissioned a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service. While at Netley he won the Parkes memorial bronze medal. In India Luard was for almost ten years on continuous active service in the frontier wars. He recorded afterwards that he "suffered from diarrhoea, sprue, piles, malaria, boils, and frontier sores without going on the sick list", which completely ruined his health, so that he was placed on temporary half-pay on 15 March 1901 and retired as a captain on 15 March 1907. He served for a time as medical officer to the 11th Bengal Lancers, when the adjutant, Captain Birdwood, afterwards Field-Marshal Lord Birdwood, taught him to ride. In 1891 he took part in the second Miranzai expedition, was mentioned in Surgeon General Robert Harvey's report for excellent service with a bearer company, and was awarded the medal and clasp. He next went with the Hunza-Nagar expedition 1891-92, and was mentioned in despatches for his attention under fire to the wounded, who included Captain Aylmer, afterwards Lieutenant-General Sir Fenton John Aylmer, Bart, VC (1862-1935), and was awarded a clasp; Aylmer's VC was won in the same campaign. The following year, 1892-93, during the Chilas operations Luard advanced into Thalpen ahead of the relief column, with only ten sepoys as escort, to treat the wounded who were almost surrounded there. For this he was mentioned by the British Agent to the Resident in Kashmir and officially thanked. He was then appointed Agency Surgeon at Gilgit and was concerned in exposing the murder by poison of Lieutenant MacHutchin the settlement officer, which however was not proved. The same year in crossing the Tragbal pass he had experience of treating a hundred men for frostbite, and amputated the toes of Captain Barrett, afterwards Field-Marshal Sir Arthur Barrett, GCB (1857-1926). Luard's paper on frostbite at the *Indian Medical Congress* in Calcutta in 1894 (*Transactions*, page 376) was well received. Next year, 1895, as Principal Medical Officer to the Gilgit field force, he was in the front line at Nisargol after crossing Shandoor pass, where he successfully brought the troops to whom he was attached through frostbite and snow-blindness; he was also in the fight at Mastuj and at the relief of Chitral, and won the medal with clasp. In 1897 he took the Fellowship and was posted as medical officer to the 45th Rattray's Sikhs and saw fighting in the Mohmand country. In 1897-98 he saw heavy fighting in the Khaiber pass and Bara valley, during the Tirah expedition under General Sir William Lockhart, GCB (1841-1900). On Christmas Day 1897 he brought the wounded off a height in Bazar Valley under fire, and on 29 December he traced and brought in from a ravine the body of General Sir Henry Havelock Allen, who had lost touch with his troops and been shot. On 18 January 1898 Luard was invalided home. In 1899 he won a money prize for his paper on "Ambulance work in hill-warfare" which was published in the *Journal of the United Service Institution of India*. During the first world war at the age of fifty-four he was promoted major, IMS, on 25 August 1916, and was attached to the RAMC with which he served till 1919. Luard married in 1905 Flora McVean, who survived him with a son and a daughter. He lived at Woodlands, Little Baddow, near Chelmsford, and died on 16 February 1944, aged 81, at Wickham Bishops, Essex.