Egerton Leigh (priest)
Egerton Leigh, was an 18th-century Anglican clergyman and landowner in North West England.
Archdeacon of Salop from 1741 until 1760, his family were landed gentry owning estates in Cheshire, being principally seated at West Hall, High Legh.Family
Background
A scion of the ancient Cheshire gentry family of Leigh, one junior branch of which were the Leighs of Stoneleigh, he was the eldest son of the Revd Peter Leigh by his wife Elizabeth, only daughter of the Hon. Thomas Egerton.
Leigh inherited the ancestral seat of West Hall together with the lordship of the manor of High Legh and the advowson of the 1st mediety of Lymm, as well as various other family estates in Cheshire.Life
Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, Leigh served variously as Rector of Lymm; Rector of Myddle, Shropshire; Archdeacon of Salop; Prebendary of Bullinghope alias Bullingham Magna, Herefordshire; Canon of Hereford; Master of St Katherine’s Hospital, Ledbury; and Vicar of Upton Bishop, Herefordshire.
A noted Cheshire antiquary, Leigh was a friend of the poet John Byrom.Legacy
Dr Leigh married three times and died in 1760 having had nineteen children, including, by the latter, George Leigh ; Sir Egerton Leigh, 1st Bt was a nephew and the suffragette Lydia Becker was a great-great-great niece.
His numerous descendants include Sir Neville Leigh KCVO and his son Sir Edward Leigh MP, the Leycester-Roxby family, the Booths of Foxley, Lymm, the Earls of Bantry, the Cunliffe and Edwards baronets and the TV personality Al Murray.
Lichfield Cathedral contains various memorial tablets to the Leigh family.
