Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/439

Leigh to the Death of King Charles the First. Collected out of the best. . . Writers,' 8vo, London, 1661. 13. 'Three Diatribes or Discourses. First, of Travel, or a Guide for Travellers into Foreign Parts. Secondly, of Money. . . Thirdly, of Measuring of the Distance betwixt Place and Place,' 16mo, London, 1671 (another edition, entitled 'The Gentleman's Guide, in Three Discourses,' 1680), reprinted in vol. x. of 'Harleian Miscellany,' ed. Park.

With H. Scudder Leigh edited W. Whately's 'Prototypes. . . with Mr. Whatelye's Life and Death,' fol., 1640. He also published Christopher Cartwright's 'The Magistrate's Authority in matters of Religion,' 4to, 1647, to which he prefixed a preface in defence of his conduct for sitting in the assembly of divines and other clerical meetings. He assisted W. Hinde in bringing out J. Rainolds's 'The Prophesie of Haggai interpreted and applyed,' 4to, 1649; and edited by himself Bishop L. Andrewes's 'Discourse of Ceremonies,' 12mo, 1653. Some lines written by Leigh 'Upon the Marriage of an Over-aged Couple,' and printed by Bliss from Rawlinson MS. Poetry, No. 116, in the Bodleian Library, display no ordinary power.

[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 926-31; Fuller's Worthies; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England (2nd edit.), iii. 105, iv. 62; Commons' Journals, v. 57, 118; Allibone's Dict.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 164-6.]  LEIGH, EGERTON (1815–1876), writer on dialect, was born in 1815. He was a member of the ancient family of Leigh or Legh settled in various parts of Cheshire, his father being Egerton Leigh of West Hall, High Leigh ; his mother was Wilhelmina Sarah, daughter of George Stratton of Tewpark, Oxford. Leigh was educated at Eton, and became a cornet in the 2nd dragoon guards (queen's bays), 12 April 1833. His subsequent steps were lieutenant 19 June 1835, and captain 18 Dec. 1840; in 1843 he retired from the regiment and entered the 1st Cheshire light infantry militia, which he quitted as lieutenant-colonel 18 Nov. 1870. In 1872 he was high sheriff for Cheshire. Leigh had long been an active conservative, and in 1873 was elected member of parliament for the Mid-Cheshire division; he was re-elected in 1874. He died at Cox's Hotel, Jermyn Street, London, on 1 July 187G, and was buried in the churchyard of Rostherne, Cheshire. He married, 20 Sept. 1842, Lydia Rachel, daughter of John Smith Wright of Bulcote Lodge, Nottinghamshire, and left five sons and a daughter. Leigh was much interested in local archaeology, and edited 'Ballads and Legends of Cheshire,' Lond. 1867, 4to. Posthumously was published his 'Glossary of Words used in the dialect of Cheshire,' London, 1877. This was largely founded on the collections of Roger Wilbraham, and has a portrait of Leigh as a frontispiece.

 LEIGH, EVAN (1811–1876), inventor, born in 1811, was son of Peter Leigh, a cotton-spinner of Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. About 1851 he quitted the management of his father's business to become a manufacturer of machinery. Latterly he was also extensively engaged as a consulting engineer, and as an exporter of machinery. He established businesses at Manchester, Liverpool, and Boston, Massachusetts. He was the author of some useful inventions for the improvement of the machinery of cotton manufacture, and has a claim also to the invention of the twin-screw for steamers, for which he took out a patent in 1849. He could not persuade the government of the day or any of the shipbuilders to take it up, though he received a letter from the lords of the admiralty thanking him for the communication. The other best-known inventions of Leigh are the 'self-stripping' carding engine, the coupled mules 'with putting-up motion,' and the loose-boss top roller. He patented nineteen inventions in all between 1849 and 1870. In 1870 he published his plan for conveying railway trains across the Straits of Dover by means of a patent ship and landing-stage, and he gave an explanation of it at a conversazione of the Manchester Scientific and Mechanical Society, of which he was president. He died at Clarence House, Chorlton, near Manchester, on 2 Feb. 1876. His eldest surviving daughter, Mrs. Ada M. Lewis, was founder of the British and American Mission Home in Paris, which was opened in March 1876, and of which she is now (1892) lady president.

Leigh was a member of various scientific institutions, notably the Institute of Naval Architects and the Institute of Civil Engineers.

In 1871 he published a profusely illustrated work entitled 'The Science of Modern Cotton Spinning,' 2 vols. 4to, in which, as he stated in the preface, he gave the results of nearly half a century of practical experience of mills and mill machinery. The book is one of great authority both in Europe and America, and attained its fourth edition in 1877. Leigh was likewise author of many papers and pamphlets relating to mechanical works. 