Author: Leigh, Chandos
Biography:
LEIGH, Chandos (1791-1850: ODNB)
Chandos Leigh was born to great wealth. His father James Henry Leigh (q.v.) of Adlestrop, Gloucestershire, was an MP and a nephew of the duke of Chandos, James Brydges; his mother Julia Judith Twistleton (1771-1843) was a daughter of the 13th baron Saye and Sele. Through his relationship with the Leighs of Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, James Henry Leigh inherited the Stoneleigh estates in 1813, and Chandos, the only son (though not the only child, pace ODNB), succeeded him in 1823. Chandos was baptised at Adlestrop on 21 June 1791. (There is some confusion about the baptismal records and it is possible that he was baptised again in Marylebone church in London on 22 Jul. 1791: the parents’ forenames are the same but the child is “ Charles” and the surname “Leight.”) He attended Harrow at the same time as Byron (q.v.), whom he admired, and like his father went up to Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1810) but did not proceed to a degree. After his Grand Tour, he lived in London and began to produce fashionable lightweight verse, which as a rule he had printed himself and at first only for private circulation. A note in Trifles (1813), for instance, reminds the reader that “these verses are not published.” On 7 June 1819 he married Margarette Willes (1798-1860, not 1866) at Marylebone church in London; they had ten children. Thereafter he lived as a country gentleman, mainly at Stoneleigh; the 1841 Census records the whole family at their London home in Belgravia. He served as High Sheriff of Warwickshire 1825-6. He became the first Baron Leigh of Stoneleigh in 1839. He continued to cultivate and in some cases to support fellow writers, notably Leigh Hunt (q.v.), whose father had been for a time tutor to Leigh’s father, and who was named after him. In 1850 he suffered what sounds like a stroke, which produced a partial paralysis, and went abroad for his health. He died in Germany, at Bonn, on 27 Sept. 1850 after “an illness of ten days” according to press reports. His wealth at death was estimated at £90,000 a year. He was buried at St. Mary’s, Stoneleigh, on 8 Oct. 1850, where his wife followed in 1860; there is a monument to them both. (ODNB 1 Jan. 2023; ancestry.com 1 Jan. 2023; findmypast.com 1 Jan. 2023; Morning Post 2 Oct. 1850; Bucks Advertiser 26 Oct. 1850) HJ