Sir Robert Holt Leigh, 1st Baronet (1762–1843) was a British Member of Parliament.

Early life

He was born on 25 December 1762, the eldest son of Holt and Mary Leigh née Owen. He had a younger brother, Roger, and a sister; Roger pre-deceased him, dying from injuries sustained in violence ahead of the

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...

election on 4 May 1831 Leigh was educated at

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) is a highly Selective school, selective Private_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom, private day school for boys aged 7-18 in Manchester, England, which was founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham (then Bishop of Exeter). ...

, and matriculated in 1781 at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

. He was much later granted a B.A. degree by Oxford, in 1837, and an M.A. in 1838. He is described by the National Archives as a classical scholar, widely travelled and a cultivated man, versed in Greek literature. He lived at Whitley Hall until 1811 when he moved to Hindley Hall after rebuilding it. He sought advice from his sister during the rebuilding process but neglected to plan for staircases in the three storied building.

Later life

Leigh was appointed Captain-Commandant of the Wigan Volunteer Association on 17 May 1798. He trained as a barrister, and then was returned unopposed to Parliament for the Borough of Wigan on 8 July 1802, a seat he kept until retiring in 1820. After the 1812 election he was listed as one of

George Canning George Canning (; 11 April 17708 August 1827) was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as foreign secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the U ...

’s 11 personal followers returned to the new Parliament. Canning nominated Leigh as one of the men whom he wanted to offer a baronetcy. The Leigh Baronetcy, of Whitley in the County of Lancaster, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 27 December 1814 for Robert Holt Leigh. In 1830 Leigh was one of the initial proprietors of the Wigan Branch Railway. He was a

feoffees Under the feudal system in England, a feoffee () is a trustee who holds a fief (or "fee"), that is to say an estate in land, for the use of a beneficial owner. The term is more fully stated as a feoffee to uses of the beneficial owner. The use o ...

(or governor) of the Manchester free school in the 1830s. By this time the school was getting richer on the proceeds of the mills which provided its funding and had a growing surplus on account. Its feoffees were heavily criticised for running the school to suit the needs of their offspring rather than as originally intended, the poor of Manchester. This led to a long running suit at the Court of Chancery, which eventually promoted the commercial side at the expense of the classical side of the school. In his later years, Leigh had a notorious affair with Sarah Yates, the wife of one of his tenant farmers. He died unmarried on 21 January 1843, leaving a life interest in his estates to Thomas Pemberton (son of his cousin Margaret Leigh), who assumed the additional surname of Leigh and who was subsequently raised to the peerage in his own right as Baron Kingsdown. The reversion of his estates, after Baron Kingsdown died, together with the interest on £20,000, was left to Sarah Yates's son Roger Leigh, whom Sir Robert adopted, as long as he remained a member of the Church of England.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leigh, Robert Holt 1762 births 1843 deaths

501 __NOTOC__ Year 501 ( DI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Avienus and Pompeius (or, less frequently, year 1254 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 501 fo ...

Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Wigan UK MPs 1802–1806 UK MPs 1806–1807 UK MPs 1807–1812 UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 People educated at Manchester Grammar School