Roger Leigh
(1821-1924)

[This sitting does not appear in the Silvy daybooks in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery. Presumably it took place between July 1863 and June 1864, the period covered by the missing daybook.]

Roger Leigh appears on the 1861 census, aged 20, a ‘Fundholder’ staying at 22 Berkley Square, Mayfair [London], the home of the Honourable Jane Lindsay, an 85-year-old widow. His place of birth is given as Bradshaigh Hall in Lancashire.

On 29 May 1861 at Kexby in Yorkshire he married Elizabeth Jane Blackwell, elder daughter of the late Thomas Eden Blackwell of the Royal Argyllshire Highlanders and step-daughter of Reverend Arthur Maister, the incumbent of St Paul's, Kexby

By the will of Sir Robert Holt Leigh, in 1867 he inherited Hinley Hall at Aspull in Wigan, Lancashire. In 1880 he is recorded as a coalmine owner. On the 1881 census he is recorded as an MP living at Barham Court in Teston, Kent. At the time of the 1891 census he was staying at an hotel in Folkestone with his second wife, Agatha. In 1901 they were living in London at 70 Courtfield Gardens, Kensington.

The first Mrs Leigh died at Aix-les-Bains in France on 30 July 1884. In her memory Roger Leigh largely paid for the building of the Anglican church of St Elizabeth on Bolton Road in Aspull, dedicated to St Elizabeth of Hungary.

On 12 August 1885 he took as his second wife, Agatha Elizabeth, daughter of Alfred Shaw. 

Roger Leigh died on 29 February 1924 at 3 Queen's Parade in Bath, leaving an estate valued at £124,577. According to his obituary in the Times (3 March 1924): ‘Mr Roger Leigh, late of Barham Court, Maidstone, and Hindley Hall, Lancashire, died at Bath on Friday in his 84th year. The only son of Thomas Yates, of Hindley, he was born on April 27, 1840, and was adopted by Sir Robert Holt Leigh, first and last baronet of Hindley Hall. Sir Robert, who died in 1843, left a life interest in his estates to a distant relative, Thomas Pemberton, an eminent Chancery barrister who had successfully conducted a case for him in 1831. Pemberton, who took the name of Leigh, refused the Lord Chancellorship but became a member of the Judicial Committee, and was ultimately created Lord Kingsdown. On his death, in 1867, the estates passed to Mr Roger Leigh, who had the name and arms of Leigh in 1850. In 1869 Mr Leigh went up to Christ Church, Oxford, and also became, later, a member of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1880 he was elected in the Conservative interest as junior member of Rochester, and sat until 1885. He was twice married, and leaves three daughters.’

[From an album compiled by Charles Balfour (1822-1876), a British wine merchant importing sherry and port from Portugal.]