2-981-788 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lord Gerard, 1876. 'The Right Hon. Robert Tolver Gerard, who by recent creation has become Baron Gerard of Byrn, in the county palatine of Lancaster, is the representative of an old Lancashire Roman Catholic family, one of whose ancestors was created a Baronet on the day of the first institution of the order in 1611...He entered the [British] Army in 1837, became Lieutenant-Colonel of the Lancashire Yeomanry in 1855, and was appointed Aide-de-Camp to the Queen in 1869. He does not appear to have taken any very active part in public life beyond his own county and district, and his peerage would seem to have been bestowed on account of personal worth and his great territorial position'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.