NOTABLE LEATHERLANDS / LETHERLANDS / LITHERLANDS - Part One

There are a surprising number of Leatherlands who achieved fame in public life. Here are a selection.

CHARLES LEATHERLAND (1898 - 1992) 

My maternal grandfather who came from a working class Birmingham family, left school aged fourteen and served in the First World War. He became a journalist on a Cheshire newspaper, then worked for the Labour Party Press & Publicity Department. Joining the Daily Herald as a sub-editor, he rose up the ranks, becoming Assistant Editor. After retirement he became a Labour Life Peer in the House of Lords. See Bimringham Leatherlands and www.charlesleatherland.info 

DR JOSEPH LETHERLAND (1698 - 1764)

Dr Joseph Letherland became a successful doctor, notably as physician to the  Queen. 

Born in Stratford upon Avon, the son of a Presbyterian minister, he studied medicine at Leiden University, and was later created Doctor of Medicine of Cambridge. Letherland worked as a physician at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, from 1736 to 1758. In 1761 he was appointed as physician to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III.

Letherland collected a substantial scientific library, including scientific instruments, curiosities and manuscripts. He is credited with being the first doctor to draw attention to the disease of diphtheria in 1739. He always practised in London, but without becoming much known to the public, though he was highly esteemed by  colleagues for his learning and professional attainments.

He died in 1764, and was buried in the church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, where a memorial tablet was placed to him. He never married. 

JOHN AYRE LEATHERLAND (1812 - 1874)

John Ayre Leatherland was one of the few nineteenth century working class men to write an autobiography. He is possibly a distant ancestor. 

Born in Kettering, Northants, the son of a wheelwright, he became a silk weaver. He married Elizabeth Goode in 1842 at Fuller Baptist Meeting, Kettering. After some years working as a  plush and velvet weaver in Kettering, he later became a newspaper reporter for the Northampton Herald. 

In the 1840s he became involved in the Chartist movement in Kettering, acting as  Secretary of Kettering Chartist Association for four years. Chartism was a working class political campaign.

Leatherland wrote a book "Essays and Poems with a brief Autobiographical Memoir" published in 1862. This tells us more about his early life. His father died when John was five years old and his mother remarried. John says he went to a dame school, his mother also helped to educate him.  

In 1824 John was sent to learn the shoemaking craft but trade was bad so he was placed in the loom under his father-in-law who was a weaver. In 1829 he began a five year apprenticeship in ribbon weaving, but he was not happy in this job. He devoted much time to literary pursuits and formed a Mutual Instruction Society with his workmates. He arranged classes, delivered lectures and began writing essays. He won some local celebrity as a poet. 

In 1853 and 1854 he won prizes for essays submitted to the local Religious and Useful Knowledge Society and the Northampton Mechanics Institute. His Autobiographical Memoir has thirty nine pages of memoirs, eight essays and some poems. 

JA Leatherland died in Kettering in 1874. He had a daughter who married a shoe factory worker who later became a foreman. 

John is quite likely to have links with my ancestors as he lived in Northamptonshire. I have not established a firm link, but his baptism records show that his father was Samuel. The best match is with a Samuel Leatherland who was baptised in Welford in 1784 and whose parents (William and Ann) are my ancestors from Crick. So - pending further research - my hunch is that J.A. Leatherland may be one of my distant ancestors.

JOHN LEATHERLAND OF CONSTANTINOPLE

John Leatherland was a diplomat or trader who was in Constantinople in 1685 probably working for the Levant Company. We know this because a distant possible descendant owns a leather pouch inscribed 'John Leatherland Constantinople 1685'. There is also a portrait reputedly of Leatherland with an oriental style headdress with a matching portrait of William Church of Tunstall Hall, Shropshire. By oral family tradition, Leatherland was reputed to have been a diplomat. 

In 1982 Christopher Holme of Oxford, a retired BBC Radio producer who had inherited the leather pouch and portraitvia the Church family of Shropshire, wrote to my grandfather Lord Leatherland, wondering whether he had any knowledge of this diplomat as the surname was so rare. 

In 1986 I contacted Mr Holme having discovered the letter to Grandpa (who had not replied).  Mr Holme told me more. The Leatherland portrait was large and formed a matching facing pair with a portrait of William Church, an early 18th century landowner who built Tunstall Hall just outside Market Drayton in 1734. 

The Church family had originated from Nantwich, Cheshire but settled in Shropshire from the sixteenth century. William Church succeeded to an immense estate stretching from Nantwich / Newcastle under Lyme to south of Market Drayton. Mr Holme's father inherited the portraits via his mother's sisters.

The fact that the leather pouch ended up in the possession of the Church family suggested that Leatherland had returned to and perhaps died in Shropshire. Although the portraits don't name the subjects of the paintings, Mr Holme's father wrote down what his he aunts told him them and there was never any doubt in their minds that the portraits were of Leatherland and Church.

In 1986 I visited Mr Holme and saw the leather pouch and the portraits which hung on his staircase. Foolishly I did not take a camera !  Mr Holme died in 1991. Many years later I made contact with his son who sent me photos of the portrait (but not the wallet which was not accessible at the time).

The Levant Company was established in 1581 and was granted a monopoly of English trade with the Turkish Empire. 

It is not known when or where Leatherland was born but he was said to be older than William Church (born 1679) so perhaps he was born in the 1640s/50s. Although it seems possible that he married into the family, no evidence of this has been found, despite extensive searches to find a link. 

Boyds Marriage Index  has a John Litherland marriage in 1693 in Westbury, Shropshire, and a Johannes Letherland burial there in 1697. A John Le(a)therland regularly appears in London Land Tax records between 1692 and 1712. 

There is much interesting info on the Church family a website 

https://thehistorydetective.org/betton/ 

Findmypast has the will and inventory of William Church who died in 1743 at Drayton. I have gone through the inventory which is lengthy but I can't see any references to paintings or a leather pouch or to John Leatherland. 

I have searched many records to trace John Leatherland but without much success. 

ELIZABETH LEATHERLAND : THE TRING CENTENARIAN (1763? - 1875)

Elizabeth Leatherland was an elderly lady who achieved fame in 1873 when the press reported on her claim that she was 111 years old !!

Letter to the Times 

This began in August 1873 when a letter to The Times newspaper from J. Piggott of Leighton Buzzard highlighted the fact that Elizabeth Leatherland, an elderly resident of Tring, Hertfordshire, claimed to be 111 years old. Under the headline ‘The Tring Centenarian’, the writer claimed that she had been baptised in 1763 as Elizabeth Horam, daughter of a traveller from a well known gypsy family. Mr Pigott said that she had married James Leatherland, a Private in the Buckinghamshire Militia in Dover. James died in Ireland in 1816. One of her sons and his whole family had drowned in a tragic accident in Kent. Pigott admitted that most of this information came from Betty Leatherland herself. 

This letter set off a lively round of correspondence to The Times, some expressing doubts about the story, others claiming evidence in support of it. Many local and regional newspapers reprinted features in from Fleet Street papers so the story of the Tring Centenarian became well known nationwide.   

In a letter to The Times from Henry Harvey, former Vicar of Tring, he said that the story of Old Betty was well known in the neighbourhood, but that he had made careful inquiries at Dover regarding the wedding and that neither of the registers of the town’s two parish churches contain any entry of the supposed marriage. Although he confirmed that the baptism an Elizabeth Horan appeared in the  Chinnor parish register in October 1763, he felt that there was no actual proof of her being 111 years old. A letter to the Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News doubted that Betty was really in her 112th year. Another correspondent suggested that the Chinnor baptism related to her mother. 

Her Death 

Elizabeth Leatherland died in January 1875. The death certificate gave her age as 111 and said she was the widow of Joseph Leatherland, a soldier. 

A few weeks later that newspaper reported on her autopsy and gave an account of her family history from an esteemed doctor who had examined her a year earlier. This doctor found “an absence of any senile changes in any part of her body”. In fact “I compared her condition in some respects at that time to that of a sixteen year old girl” !! 

She had confirmed that she was born in Chinnor and that her maiden name was Hearne. She mentioned the death of her eldest son and his family in an accident when wagon carrying hop pickers' wagon crossed a bridge in Kent. 

Was Elizabeth Leatherland really 111 ? 

So here we have a lady who it was claimed lived to the extraordinary age of 111. All agreed that she came from a gypsy family, that she had been married to Joseph Leatherland, that she had several children, some of who drowned in a tragic accident in Kent. What was the truth of this ? Is there much evidence to support these claims, bearing in mind that there can be difficulties in tracing gypsy ancestry because 

(a) they often moved around from place to place 

(b) gypsy names can be flexible

(c) gypsies do not always have all their children baptised or marry in church. 

The Baptism

There is indeed a baptism of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Horam traveller in Chinnor, Oxfordshire in 1763. Ancestry has an image of the parish register. Although the surname is spelt Horam in the register, there is much evidence that she was related to the Herne family, who are well known and documented as one of the Home Counties gypsy clans.

The Marriage

There is a marriage of Elizabeth Herne to Joseph Leatherland in 1803, but the marriage took place in Dovercourt, which is an Essex suburb of Harwich, rather than Dover, Kent. The register says that Joseph was of the Royal Buckinghamshire Militia. Further research shows that this Militia was posted to Harwich Barracks in 1803. So my theory is that - despite The Times letter referring to a marriage in Dover - this must have been confused with Dovercourt, possibly due to Betty Leatherland’s faulty memory.

The date of the marriage is also significant because, if she was really baptised in 1763 baptism, she married aged 40 which is very late for a first marriage (unless she had been married and then widowed before of which there is no evidence) and had children during her forties which again is unlikely. 

Children's Baptisms

Four baptisms have been found :

• Samuel, son of Joseph and Elizabeth Leatherland, at Maidstone, Kent in 1805. The baptism entry also gives his DOB two months earlier. Crucially it gives the father’s occupation as Royal Bucks Militia. 
• William and Thomas in Welford, Northamptonshire, in 1808, twin sons of Joseph and Elizabeth Leatherland, father’s occupation soldier. 
• Sabirah at Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, in 1815, parents Joseph and Elizabeth Leatherland.

A fifth child has been identified, Elizabeth or possibly Charlotte, although no baptism has been found.

Timing of Baptisms

If Elizabeth Leatherland was born in 1763, she gave birth to her five children between the ages of 42 and 52. Births in a woman’s early 40s are quite possible, but giving birth at the age of 52 is most unlikely, especially two hundred years ago (although not completely impossible). If the baptisms were of infants or children rather than babies this might mean they were born earlier, but Sabirah’s baptism also a gives a date of birth two months earlier, as do the entries for the twin sons. 

So the evidence of her children’s baptisms casts strong doubts on Elizabeth having been born in 1763, as does her age at marriage. It is much more likely that she was born in the 1780s, but not formally baptised.

Welford

The second interesting feature is that the twins were baptised in Welford. This is a Northamptonshire village seven miles from where most of my Leatherland ancestors lived. My research shows that her husband Joseph Leatherland is probably my distant ancestor. His great grandfather was Christopher Leatherland, the sheep farmer of Yelvertoft, who is my probable seven times great grandfather.

Joseph Leatherland was baptised in Welford in 1777. He was the fourth child of William and Ann Leatherland. This baptism is another reason for doubting the age of his wife, as it makes him fourteen years older than Elizabeth if she was born in 1763 which is of course possible but makes her story less likely.

Joseph Leatherland's Death in Ireland

According to his widow, her husband died in 1816 in Ireland. This is a bit of a mystery. The Royal Buckinghamshire Militia was disembodied in 1814. The Napoleonic Wars had ended by 1816. I have found no evidence that Joseph was Irish or that he, or any of his relatives, had any links to Ireland. Carrick on Shannon – where his widow and others have said he died - is in County Leitrim in the Irish Republic.

Irish genealogy is unfortunately hampered by the loss of very many records, including census returns, parish registers and wills, in a disastrous fire and explosion at the Irish Public Record Office during the 1922 Irish civil war. Some records did survive, but there are no surviving parish registers for Carrick on Shannon before the mid 1820s (and no burial registers before the 1840s). I have carried out searches in other Irish record sources but cannot find any evidence of his death.  So Joseph’s death remains a mystery, although I suspect that there was a military reason which took him there.

Marriages of Joseph and Elizabeth's Children

In 1824 their son Samuel Leatherland married Charlotte Hearn in Hawridge, Buckinghamshire. Charlotte was probably a cousin and a member of the Hearn gypsies.

In 1828 their daughter Elizabeth Leatherland married Emanuel Hearn also in Hawridge, Bucks. Again Emanuel must be a relative of her mother. 

In 1838 their daughter Sabira married William Wright in Chesham, Bucks. The marriage certificate names her as Sabra Latherham, a [straw] platter. It names her father as the late Joseph Latherlam. Despite the odd spelling of the surname, I am confident this is her. 

In 1849 their son William Leatherland married Lydia Norwood in Tring. The marriage certificate shows William as a 37 year old labourer of Buckland Common, Drayton Beauchamp, and that his father as Joseph Leatherland soldier. One of the witnesses was Elizabeth Leatherland, probably his mother.

Elizabeth Leatherland in the Censuses

Elizabeth Leatherland has been found in the 1851/61/71 censuses, although not in 1841. Her surname is spelt Leatherton, but there is enough corroborating evidence to show that this is her (and in some of the images the name might be Leatherlon).

1851. Bottom House, Drayton Beauchamp, Aylesbury, Bucks.  Elizabeth Leatherton, mother of head of household, widow, age 81, occupation housekeeper, birthplace not known. The household head is her son William Leatherton (married, 42, agricultural  labourer, birthplace not known), with his wife Lydia Leatherton (wife, married, 34, born Bucklow Bucks). 

1861. Buckland, Bucks. Elizabeth Leatherton, lodger, widow, age 88, born Buckland Common. Head of household is her son William Leatherton.

(In 1863 her son William died of epilepsy and apoplexy at Buckland Common. The General Register Offices indexes his surname as Leatherston, but on the certificate it looks like Leatherland).

1871. The Red Lion, Frogmore Street, Tring. Elizabeth Leatherton, lodger, age 102, occupation professional vagrant (gypsy). The head of household was the lodging house keeper and publican. There were fifteen other adult lodgers perhaps gypsies or travellers.[ It is interesting to note that her age is said to be 102, whereas four years later she was claiming to be 111].

The Hartlake Tragedy

The most interesting but tragic episode of Elizabeth’s life was the accident which killed thirty people in 1853, including her eldest son Samuel Leatherland, his wife Charlotte, four of their adult daughters plus two of their infant grandchildren. This accident is very well documented so there is no doubt about its veracity. The best description which I repeat below comes from the Romanyroad website under the heading The Hartlake Disaster :

http://romanyroad.weebly.com/hartlake-disaster.html :

“In the corner of St. Mary’s Churchyard, Hadlow, is a monument shaped to resemble an oasthouse.  It marks the resting place of thirty hop-pickers who were drowned in the River Medway at Hartlake on 20th October 1853. The victims ranged in age from 2 to 59  years, including four children and several young girls. Twelve of the victims are thought to have been from Ireland, while most of the rest were gypsies from one extended family.  All but one of the Leatherland family died : parents Samuel and Charlotte, daughters Comfort, Selina, Alice and Lunia, together with Lunia’s husband John Herne and their two daughters.  Sarah Taylor, her son and grandson, both named Thomas and James Manser, were related to the Leatherlands by marriage".

"The hop-pickers were employed by Mr. Cox of Golden Green and were being taken by wagon to their campsite on the Tudeley side of the river.  One party had made the journey safely, but on the second trip, one of the horses stumbled and the wagon hit the side of the wooden bridge, which gave way. Wagon, passengers and horses all fell into the river, which was swollen with flood water. At the inquest held at The Bell Public House, Golden Green, Fanny Leatherland [the only member of her immediate family to survive] described how the people went tumbling down like hailstones, but she managed to take hold of the harness of the hind horse and so was saved.  The verdict was that the deceased were accidentally drowned due to the defective state of the road and bridge, the responsibility of the Medway Navigation Company."

"Funerals took place in St. Mary’s Church over several days, the last on 14th November was of the two-year-old daughter of Lunia and John Herne.  Sadly it would seem that on-one was left who knew her Christian name.  The inscription on the memorial reads" :

“This monument was erected by public subscription in memory of thirty hop-pickers who were drowned at Hartlake Bridge in a flood of the River Medway on the 20th October 1853 and whose bodies are buried in this churchyard”  -  “In the midst of life we are in death”

In October 2003, a moving memorial service was held to mark the 150th anniversary of the tragedy and to remember all those who died. It was attended by over 200 people, including some forty descendants of Sarah Taylor.  Hartlake Bridge has recently been re-built and a plaque commemorating the tragedy can be found underneath it.  Flowers are often left at the memorial, particularly near to the anniversary, so the thirty men, women and children laid to rest in Hadlow churchyard so many years ago, have not been forgotten”.   

The names of those who died on the memorial are:-

Samuel  Leatherland (59 years)                   Selina Maria Knight (  6 years)

Charlotte  Leatherland (56 years)                 Catherine Donohue (42 years)

Comfort Leatherland (24 years)                    Ellen Collins (40 years)

Selina Leatherland (22 years)                       Norah Donovan (31 years)

Alice Leatherland (18 years)                         Catherine Clare (28 years)

Lunia  Herne (26 years)                                Margaret King (20 years)

John  Herne (28 years)                                 Bridget  Flynn (20 years)

Centine  Herne ( 4 years)                             Ellen Devine  (19 years)

Baby Girl Herne ( 2 years)                            Margaret  Mahoney (19 years)

James Manser  (18 years)                           Jeremiah  Murphy (50 years)

Sarah Taylor   (55 years)                             Catherine  Preswell (24 years)

Thomas Taylor   (38 years)                          Mary   Quinn   (22 years)

Thomas Taylor   (4 years)                            Catherine Roach  (21 years)

William  Elsley (22 years)                            Ann  Howard (49 years)

Elsley (25 years)                                          Richard   Reed (30 years)

Sabirah

The life of Elizabeth Leatherland’s youngest daughter, Sabirah, is well documented in the records, although there are various variations of her forename. She also lived to a great age. She appears in the 1851/61/71 censuses in Chesham and Amersham. By 1901 she was an 88 year old widowed inmate in Amersham Union Workhouse. She died there seven years later allegedly aged 99.

Elizabeth or Charlotte 

Another of Elizabeth Leatherland’s daughters, Elizabeth or Charlotte, married Emmanuel Hearn in Hawridge in 1828. The Buckinghamshire Gazette carried a detailed report of the ceremony :

“At Hawridge near Chesham on Monday last Miss Charlotte Leatherland, a smart bright eyed young gypsy aged 17 was united in the holy bands of wedlock to Mr Emmanuel Hearn, aged 20, also one of the undomiciled persons called gipsies. The sparkling eyes of Miss Leatherland had lit up such a flame in the heart of Hearn that, with the young gispy’s consent, he had for some time been seeking a clergyman who would marry them, but his not having gained a domicile in any parish, had hitherto presented an obstacle to the completion of his wishes. To overcome this difficulty, the tents of themselves and friends were pitched on a common in the parish, and the authorities of the place were propriated to let them stay the necessary 40 days by a solemn assurance that no geese, ducks, or fowls, should be missing during that time, neither should the hedges be destroyed. The term of probation expired without the pledge having been broken, and the happy parties then proceeded to Hawkridge church, preceded by a merry figure playing a fiddle, and followed by about forty gipsies walking in procession. The marriage ceremony gone through, the Rev Mr Owen, the officiating minister, made them a present of some legs of mutton, a few bottles of wine, a bottle of brandy &co, and upwards of 3 /- was collected in cash for them. These seasonable presents increased their hilarity tenfold, the bearers of the legs of mutton joined the fiddler, and fiddled away as merrily as did he – a more refined party may often be met with, but seldom a more happy one. The next day the whole troop decamped from the spot, bag and baggage.”

I have not been able to find out much more about what became of Elizabeth or Charlotte, but she probably died young as her husband appears as a widower in censuses. In 1861 he appears as Emmanuel Hearne,widower, age 70, living in a caravan at Gravel Pit Field, Watford, occupation cane worker. He died in 1890 at the Union Workhouse Watford : Emanuel Herne 84, chair bottomer, bronchitis.