Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lord, Henry
LORD, HENRY (fl. 1630), traveller, born in Oxfordshire in 1563, matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 15 April 1580, but apparently did not graduate. In 1624, on the recommendation of Dean White, whom he had served as curate, he was appointed by the East India Company chaplain to the English factory at Surat for a term of five years, and at a salary of 60l. per annum. His trial sermon at St. Helen's having been approved, the directors further voted him 20l. ‘to buy him books’ (Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1622–4, pp. 229, 232). While at Surat he acquired some knowledge of Hindustani and Persian, and studied the customs of the natives. On his return to England he published ‘A Display of two forraigne sects in the East Indies, vizt: the sect of the Banians, the ancient Natives of India, and the sect of the Persees, the ancient Inhabitants of Persia,’ … 2 pts. 4to, London, 1630, with a curiously engraved title-page by William Marshall. Lord dedicated his volume to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the hope that his grace might see his way to repressing the natives' idolatrous practices. A French translation of the book by P. Briot appeared at Paris in 1667. It has been reissued in Picart's ‘Religious Ceremonies’ (French and English editions alike), in Pinkerton's ‘Voyages’ (vol. viii.), and in the various editions of Churchill's ‘Collection of Voyages and Travels.’
[Lord's Display; preface to the French translation, 1667; Brit. Mus. Cat.]