LETHBRIDGE, JOSEPH WATTS (1817–1885), dissenting divine, born at Plymouth 20 Jan. 1817, entered Cheshunt College in 1842, and in 1846 Lady Huntingdon's connexion, in which he laboured at Kidderminster, and afterwards at Melbourne, Derbyshire (1850–5). Migrating to the independents, he was placed in charge of their church at Byfield, Northamptonshire, whence he removed in 1862 to Leicester, and thence in 1868 to Wellingborough. He retired in 1883, and died 27 July 1885.
Lethbridge published: 1. ‘The Shakspere Almanack for 1849,’ London, 12mo. 2. ‘Woman the Glory of Man,’ London, 1856, 12mo. 3. ‘Loving Thoughts for Human Hearts,’ London, 1860, 12mo. 4. ‘The Idyls of Solomon: the Hebrew Marriage Week arranged in Dialogue,’ London, 1878, 8vo.
[Congregational Year-Book; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
LETHBRIDGE, WALTER STEPHENS (1772–1831?), miniature-painter, son of William Lethbridge, a farmer, was born at Charleton, Devonshire, and baptised there on 13 Oct. 1772. He was apprenticed to a house-painter; for a short time he acted as assistant to a travelling artist, and then came to London, where he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. From 1801 to 1829 Lethbridge was an annual exhibitor of miniatures at the Academy; these included portraits of Mrs. Glover, Miss Booth, Miss Kelly, Miss Lacy, and other theatrical celebrities. His likenesses of the Earl and Countess of Huntingdon and Henry Nugent Bell were engraved for the latter's ‘Huntingdon Peerage,’ 1821, and those of Captain George Nicholas Hardinge, R.N., George P. Bidder (‘The Calculating Boy’) and Sarah Lysons, the Ipswich centenarian, have also been engraved. In 1830 Lethbridge retired to Stonehouse, Plymouth, where he is said to have died in 1831, but this is not confirmed by the parish register. His miniatures of Samuel Horsley, bishop of St. Asaph, and Dr. John Wolcot (‘Peter Pindar’) are in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers (Armstrong); Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Royal Academy Catalogues; information from the Rev. Vincent Young, vicar of Charleton.]
LETHEBY, HENRY (1816–1876), analytical chemist, was born at Plymouth in 1816. He graduated M.B. at London University in 1842, and was also L.S.A. (1837) and Ph.D. He was lecturer on chemistry at the London Hospital, and for some years medical officer of health and analyst of foods for the city of London. He was also appointed chief examiner of gas for the metropolis under the board of trade. Letheby was an exceedingly accurate technological chemist, and contributed many papers to the ‘Lancet’ and other scientific periodicals. He was a fellow of the Linnean and Chemical Societies. He died on 28 March 1876 at his residence, 17 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London. He left a widow. Letheby's chief work was a treatise on ‘Food, its Varieties, Chemical Composition, &c.,’ London, 1870, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1872. His official reports on the sanitary condition of London were published from time to time.
[Times, 30 March 1876; Medical Register for 1876 and 1877; Analyst, 1876, p. 15; Chemical News, 1876, p. 146; Public Health, 1876, p. 218; Med. Times and Gazette, 1876, p. 447; Men of the Reign.]
LETHERLAND, JOSEPH (1699–1764), physician, was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1699. He entered the university of Leyden 30 Sept. 1722, and graduated M.D. 5 July 1724 with an inaugural dissertation, ‘Veterum medicorum sententiæ de Phrenitide curandâ’ (Leyden, 1724, 4to). Some years afterwards he was created doctor of medicine of Cambridge by royal mandate 9 April 1736, and thus qualified for the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, where he was admitted candidate 30 Sept. 1736, and fellow 30 Sept. 1737, afterwards holding the office of censor and other college dignities. He was elected physician to St. Thomas's Hospital 7 July 1736, and resigned that office at the close of 1758. In 1761 Letherland was appointed physician to the queen, on the recommendation of Dr. William Heberden the elder [q. v.], who had declined the honour. He died 31 March 1764, and was buried in the church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, where a memorial tablet was placed to him.
Letherland always practised in London, but without becoming much known to the public, though he was highly esteemed by his colleagues for his learning and professional attainments. His classical learning was shown in a reply to Conyers Middleton's dissertation on the servile condition of physicians among the Romans, in which he vindicated the position of the Roman physicians: ‘Notæ breves in Dissertationem de Medicorum apud Romanos conditione a C. Middleton editam,’ 8vo, London, 1726. This
