Roger was the son of Lt. Col Charles Eckford Luard and his wife Alice Margaret Evans. Both the Luard and Evans families had long connections with India where Roger may have been born. His father, who was British political agent in Bhopal 1921-23, wrote a number of books on Indian culture. He died in the Acland Nursing Home in Oxford in May 1927, having retired to live at Woods End, Boars Hill, Oxford. He left £11,531-6-8

“In the early years of the twentieth century, Lt. Col. Charles Eckford Luard an administrator serving in Central India, commissioned Indians serving under him to record women's songs "from the lips of the local people." In the margins of one of these handwritten records in the India Office Library, I found the following notation, made by an Indian serving under Luard
"This is quite obscene. I have therefore used pencil that this should be struck out if considered befitting”

Roger was educated at Marlborough and Matriculated in 1930. He graduated with a 2nd in PPE in 1933. He was Called to the Bar of the Middle Temple in 1936, having been a Harmsworth Scholar.

On 24 November 1933, he was granted an Auxiliary Air Force Commission as a Pilot Officer in No. 601 (County of London) (Bomber) Squadron. He was promoted to Flying Officer in the General Duties Branch on May 24th 1935. He relinquished his RAF command in 1938.

Early in 1937, he married Edith Maxwell at St Margaret’s Westminster.

In 1939, they visited the United States, returning to England on 29 May. Roger is described as a merchant on the manifest. They were living at 30 Iverna Gardens, London W8.

He died on 5 November 1943. He was a Commander in the RNVR based at HMS President. Nothing has been found about his naval career. Why he was in North Africa is not known.

He is buried in the Halfaya Sollum War Cemetery Plot 5. A. 10.

It is on the main coast road from Mersa Matruh through to Libya, and is on the east side of Halfaya Sollum, approximately 12 kilometres from the Egypt/Libya border.

His wife married, the following summer, John Edward Bernard Hill, Member of Parliament for South Norfolk 1955-74, She died in 1995.