Edward Leigh, 5th Baron Leigh (1742–1786) was descended from Thomas Leigh,

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...

in 1558, and inherited the Leigh family seat at Stoneleigh Abbey,

Stoneleigh, Warwickshire Stoneleigh, or Stoneleigh-in-Arden, is a small village in Warwickshire, England, on the River Sowe, situated 4.5 miles (7.25 km) south of Coventry and 5.5 miles (9 km) north of Leamington Spa. The population taken at t ...

following the death of his father, Thomas Leigh, 4th Baron Leigh, in 1749. He was Lord of the Manor of Hunningham.Hunningham, in A History of the County of Warwick: Vol. 6, Knightlow Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London, 1951), pp. 117-120. Leigh spent his early years under the guardianship of his mother's family, the Cravens of Coombe Abbey. He attended

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

and matriculated as a

gentleman commoner A commoner is a student at certain universities in the British Isles who historically pays for his own tuition and commons, typically contrasted with scholars and exhibitioners, who were given financial emoluments towards their fees. Cambridge ...

at Oriel College in 1761, receiving his MA in 1764. Aged 25, Leigh was elected High Steward of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and was made a

Doctor of Civil Law Doctor of Civil Law (DCL; ) is a degree offered by some universities, such as the University of Oxford, instead of the more common Doctor of Laws (LLD) degrees. At Oxford, the degree is a higher doctorate usually awarded on the basis of except ...

. At the same time, he was active at Stoneleigh: collecting art, furniture and books, he also made

architectural plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

s for the house. In 1766 and 1797 payments are recorded to Bedlam Hospital and John Munro or his son Thomas Munro, the mad-doctors who later attended to

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

, and in 1774 an Inquisition of Insanity found that Leigh had been 'a Lunatick of unsound mind' over the previous five years and committed him to the guardianship of his sister, Hon. Mary Leigh, his uncle Reverend John Craven, and his cousin William, Lord Craven at which point he vanished from public view. A prayer written by his sister Mary in about 1775 survives:

O Lord look down from Heaven, in much pity and compassion, upon thy afflicted servant, who is not able to now look up to thee, hear O most merciful Father my Prayers on his behalf, and preserve him from doing any harm to himself or to any other: be pleased to remove all frightfull imaginations far from him, and if it be the blessed will, O our God restore him to his reason and understanding, so will we all give thanks to thee for ever and ever. Amen.

Leigh died unmarried and without heirs in 1786, leaving a complex will that would create legal disputes into the 19th century. Among the provisions, the will gave Leigh's scientific instruments and his library of about 1,000 books to his

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

, Oriel College. After Leigh's death, his personal papers were deliberately destroyed by John Dodson, a Fellow of Oriel, who had been sent to Stoneleigh to sort Leigh's books. The destruction was sanctioned by Leigh's uncle and sister.

References

Sources

*Purcell, Mark, A lunatick of unsound mind': Edward, Lord Leigh (1742–86) and the refounding of Oriel College Library'' p. 246-260. ''Bodleian Library Record''. Vol. 17, no. 3-4 (Apr-Oct 2001). {{DEFAULTSORT:Leigh, Edward Leigh, 5th Baron 1742 births 1786 deaths 5 Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford People educated at Westminster School, London People from Warwick District People from the Borough of Rugby