Author: Leigh, James Henry
Biography:
LEIGH, James Henry (1765-1823: ancestry.com)
He was baptised on 8 Feb. 1765 at Ludgershall, Wiltshire, where his parents James Leigh of Adlestrop, Gloucestershire (1724-74), and Lady Caroline Brydges (1730-1804) had married on 10 Mar. 1755. He was tutored at home at Adlestrop—Isaac Hunt, father of Leigh Hunt (q.v.), was his tutor for a time—and then sent to Harrow School (1779-80) followed by Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1782), where he did not proceed to a degree. He married his first cousin once removed, Julia Judith Twistleton (1771-1843), on 8 Dec. 1776 at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire; they had one son, Chandos Leigh (q.v.), and four daughters. Leigh’s published verse reflects literary and theatrical interests that he would have had leisure to pursue in the 1780s. His preface to The New Rosciad, which was published anonymously, outlines the goals of his satire: “to counteract . . . perverse taste,” “to assign to merit its due share of fame,” and to expose “vanity, impudence, and buffoonery” on the stage. Leigh later took a seat in parliament as MP for Marlborough (1802-6), Bedwyn (1806-18)—both in Wiltshire--and Winchester, Hampshire (1818-23). In 1813 he inherited the large estate of Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire. In Feb. 1823 he accepted the riding of the Chiltern Hundreds, but he died in his sleep on 28 Oct. that year at Stoneleigh Abbey and was buried at St. Mary’s, Stoneleigh, with a monumental inscription. (ancestry.com 1 Jan. 2023; findmypast.con 1 Jan. 2023; Harrow School Register, 1571-1800 [1834], 96; Alumni Oxonienses; OJ 16 Dec. 1786; Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser 1 Nov. 1823)