with his Italian properties, Leader with the aid of competent scholars made especially exhaustive researches into the biographies of Sir John Hawkwood [q. v.] and Robert Dudley, titular duke of Northumberland [q. v.]. His life of Hawkwood. 'Giovanni Acuto,' which came out at Florence in 1889 in the joint names of himself and Giuseppe Marcotti, is a standard work; it was translated into English by 'Leader Scott' in 1889 [see Baxter, Lucy, Suppl. II]. Hardly less elaborate is Leader's 'Life of Sir Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland' (Florence, 1895), in the preface to which he acknowledges 'Leader Scott's' assistance. An Italian translation appeared at Florence in 1896.
Leader died, active to the last, at 14 Piazza dei Pitti, Florence, on 1 March 1903. Late in life he adopted the Roman catholic faith, and in accordance with a codicil to his will he was buried with Roman catholic rites.
On 19 Aug. 1867 Leader married, on one of his few visits to London, by special licence, Maria Louisa di Leoni, widow of Count Antonio di Leoni and daughter of Constantine Raimondi. She died at Florence on 5 Feb. 1906, without issue.
A fine medallion portrait of Leader in bronze, dated 1895 (presented by himself), is in the audience room of the Reform Club, Pall Mall. Portraits of him and his wife by Italian artists are at the Piazza dei Pitti at Florence and the Villa Temple Leader, Maiano.
Leader's fortune amounted to 250,000l. He made several bequests to educational and charitable institutions in Florence, including the sum of 7000l. for the restoration of the central bronze door of the Duomo. The rest of his property in England and Italy, including Vincigliata, was bequeathed to his grandnephew, Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, third Lord Westbury, whose maternal grandfather, the Rev. Alexander Fownes-Luttrell, had married Leader's sister, Anne Jane. Leader still owned at his death the family residence on Putney Hill. He proved his lifelong interest in the district by giving 2000l. in 1887 for the restoration of St. John's Church there.
[Authorities cited; information from the third Lord Westbury; The Times, 3 March 1903, 11 May (will); Tablet, 16 May 1903; Leader's Rough and Rambling Notes, chiefly of my Early Life, Florence 1899 (with reprint of a contemporary memoir of Leader in Saunders's Portraits and Memoirs of the Most Eminent Political Reformers, 1838); R. E. Leader's Autob. of Roebuck, 1897, passim; J. C. Francis's Notes by the Way, 1909, p. 188.
Accounts of Leader's chief Italian residences appeared under his auspices in ‘Il Castello di Vincigliata e i suoi contorni,’ Florence, 1871; Giuseppe Marcotti's ‘Vincigliata,’ Florence, 1870; and ‘Majano Vincigliata Settignano,’ by Alessandro Papini (Leader's maestro di casa), Florence, 1876. Largely working on Marcotti's book, Leader Scott (Mrs. Lucy Baxter) prepared for Leader her ‘Vincigliata and Maiano,’ Florence, 4to, 1891, and her ‘Guide to Vincigliata,’ Florence, 1897.]
LEAKE, GEORGE (1856–1902), premier of Western Australia, born at Perth, Western Australia, in 1856, was eldest son of George Walpole Leake, Q.C. His family had long taken a prominent part in the parliamentary and official life of Western Australia. His father (after filling many public offices in the colony between 1870 and 1890) was a member of the first legislative council under responsible government from 1890 until July 1894, when the council under the Constitution Act of 1889 became elective. His uncle, Sir Luke Samuel Leake, was speaker of the legislative council from 19 Oct. 1870 till his death on 1 May 1886.
After education at Bishop's Boys' School (now Perth High School) and St Peter's Collegiate School, Adelaide, George Leake, having been articled to his father, was admitted to the bar of the supreme court in May 1880 and was taken into partnership by his father. From 1878 to 1880 he was clerk to the registrar of the supreme court and assistant clerk of the legislative council, and after acting for a time as crown solicitor, he held the office permanently, except for a brief interval, from May 1883 to July 1894. In 1886 he acted temporarily as attorney-general and member of the executive council.
Leake, who attained a prominent position in his profession, was returned to the first legislative assembly as member for Roebourne in 1890, when the colony granted responsible government. He declined the offer of a poet in the ministry of Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Forrest. In June 1894 he was elected member for Albany in opposition to the Forrest ministry, was re-elected in May 1897, and resigned in August 1900 on visiting England. In April 1901 he returned to parliament as member for West Berth. He was made a Q.C. in 1898 on the recommendation of Sir John Forrest. Leake, a strong advocate of federation, was president of the Federation League of Western Australia, and a delegate to the
