5th Lord Leigh (1935-2003)
Michael Rhodes
home was the magnificent Stoneleigh Abbey, Kenilworth, Warwickshire,
died 16 September, 2003, at the age of 68.
Stoneleigh Abbey (with 690 acres of parkland) was the home of the
Leigh family from 1561 until the late twentieth century.
Many famous people have connections with the Abbey: King Charles I was
entertained here when the gates of Coventry were closed against him in
the Civil War, Jane Austen (a kinswoman of the Leighs) stayed at the
Abbey and uses descriptions of its grand interiors and gardens in two
of her novels, and in 1858 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed at
Stoneleigh.
In December 1996 the ownership of Stoneleigh Abbey passed to a
charitable trust who, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund,
English Heritage and the European Regional Development Fund, have in
partnership with Warwick District Council repaired and restored the
buildings of the Abbey. The masonry work required over 225 cubic
metres (450 tonnes) of newly quarried stone for the facade of the West
Wing alone.
The Leigh peerage was created in 1839 for Chandos Leigh, (1791-1850),
whose grandmother, Lady Caroline Brydges, was a daughter of Henry,
Duke of Chandos, by his wife Mary, daughter of Charles, Earl of
Ailesbury, and was descended from Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII.
William, the second Baron, (1824-1905) married Lady Caroline
Grosvenor, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Westminster. Margaret
Leigh, (1849-1945),their daughter, a sister of the 3rd Baron
(1855-1938), and aunt of the 4th Baron, married the 7th Earl of
Jersey, & was the author of a biography "Fifty-one Years of Victorian
Life" which wasn't considered suitable reading for grandchildren. She
described her parents as being until their death like a pair of
lovers.
The tangled love-life of the 5th Lord Leigh was fodder for the gossip
columnists in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1982 the peer, his wife, and two
ex-wives were all living in close proximity on the family estate.
John Piers Leigh was born 11 September, 1935, eldest of the four sons
of the 4th Lord Leigh (1908-79), by his wife Anne Hicks Beach, a
cousin of Earl St Aldwyn.
He was educated at Eton, and succeeded to the peerage (created in
1839) on the demise of his father, 24 June, 1979.
He was thrice wed and thrice divorced. His first marriage, in 1957,
was to Cecilia Poppy, daughter of Robert Jackson. This union ended in
divorce in 1974.
His second marriage, in 1976, was to Susan, daughter of John Cleave.
This marriage was dissolved in 1982, and in December of that year he
married thirdly, Mrs Lea Hamilton-Russell, ex-wife of a collateral of
the Viscounts Boyne.
By his first wife he had three children, a son and two daughters, and
by his second, a further son. The third marrirage (childless) ended in
divorce in 1998.
Lord Leigh is survived by three children. The peerage now devolves
upon his elder son, the Hon Christopher Dudley Piers Leigh, who was
born 20 Oct 1960.
A service of Thanksgiving takes place at St Mary the Virgin Church,
Stoneleigh, Wednesday 24 September, 2003.
-- Michael Rhodes