Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/17

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Leith
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manca, 22 July 1812 (ib. iv. 261–72). He was sent home, and in 1813 he was made K.B. for distinguished conduct at Corunna, Busaco, Badajoz, and Salamanca, where, in personally leading a successful charge, ‘he and the whole of his personal staff were severely wounded.’ He also received ‘honourable augmentations’ to his family arms in consideration of his services at Badajoz and Salamanca. In 1813 Leith became a lieutenant-general, a rank he had held locally in Spain and Portugal since 1811. He rejoined the Peninsular army on 31 Aug. 1813, two days before the final assault on St. Sebastian (ib. v. 272–86), where he was again disabled while directing the movements of his division. Leith, who was temporarily replaced by Major-general Andrew Hay [q. v.], remained with the army, on the sick list, for a couple of months, and then went home again. In 1814 he was appointed commander of the forces in the West Indies and governor of the Leeward islands. Gurwood reproduces a letter from Wellington very cordially congratulating Leith on obtaining ‘one of the most lucrative positions in the service,’ but suggesting that he should calculate his expenditure on ‘the lowest scale suitable to the situation he occupies’ (Wellington Desp. vii. 213). Leith arrived at Barbadoes 15 June 1814. He carried out the restoration of the French West India islands to the Bourbons; but on the news of the return of Napoleon from Elba most of the islands re-hoisted the tricolour. In consequence, an expedition was despatched from Barbadoes in June 1815 under Leith, to secure the islands on behalf of the king of France. Martinique and Marie-Galante were reoccupied without trouble, but at Guadeloupe there was some sharp fighting before the place surrendered on 8 Aug. 1815, a month after the general peace. For his services at this juncture the British government presented Leith with a sword of the value of two thousand guineas; he also received the grand cordon of military merit from Louis XVIII. Leith was created a G.C.B. (2 Jan. 1815), and for his Peninsular services wore the Portuguese grand cross of the Tower and Sword and the gold cross and clasp for Corunna, Busaco, Badajoz, Salamanca, and St. Sebastian. He died of yellow fever at Barbadoes, after six days' illness, 16 Oct. 1816. His nephew, Sir Andrew Leith Hay [q. v.], succeeded him.

[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, vol. ii.; Burke's Landed Gentry; London Gazettes, under dates; Napier's Hist. Peninsular War, rev. ed. vols. iii. iv. and v.; Gurwood's Wellington Desp. vols. iv. v. vi. and vii.; Wellington Suppl. Desp. vols. vi. xiii.; and particularly Leith-Hay's Narrative of the Peninsular War, Lond. 1831, 2nd ed. 1834, 2 vols.]

H. M. C.

LEITH, THEODORE FORBES, M.D. (1746–1819), physician, second son of John Forbes Leith and Jean Morrison, was born in 1746 in Aberdeenshire. He studied medicine in the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. 12 Sept. 1768. His thesis was read 31 Aug. 1768, and was published at the University Press. It is on the delirium of fever, is dedicated to William Cullen [q. v.] and John Gregory [q. v.], his instructors, and shows some subtlety of distinction and of argument. He practised at Greenwich, and was elected F.R.S. in 1781, and 26 June 1786 licentiate of the College of Physicians of London. In 1806, on the death of his elder brother, he inherited Whitehaugh, Aberdeenshire, went to reside there, and there he died, after breaking his clavicle, 6 Sept. 1819. He married Marie d'Arboine in 1776, and had six children.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 361; Thomson's Hist. of Royal Soc.; Thesis.]

N. M.

LE KEUX, JOHN (1783–1846), engraver, born in Sun Street, Bishopsgate, on 4 June 1783, and baptised at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, in September of that year, was son of Peter Le Keux by Anne Dyer, his wife. His father, a wholesale pewter manufacturer in Bishopsgate, was the representative of a large and flourishing Huguenot family. Le Keux was apprenticed to his father, but, acquiring a taste for engraving from an experimental practice on pewter, he turned his attention to copperplate engraving. In consequence of this he was transferred by his father for the remaining years of his apprenticeship to James Basire the first [q. v.], the engraver, to whom his brother Henry had been already apprenticed. Under Basire Le Keux acquired that peculiar skill in architectural engraving which characterised his work. He developed a very fine yet free style in the line manner, and may be considered, perhaps, the best engraver of his day in the somewhat mechanical style then in vogue. His engravings contributed very largely to the success of the architectural publications of John Britton [q. v.], A. W. Pugin [q. v.], J. P. Neale [q. v.], and similar works. He engraved the plates to Ingram's ‘Memorials of Oxford,’ and published himself two volumes of engravings, ‘Memorials of Cambridge,’ with text by Thomas Wright and Harry Longueville Jones [q. v.]; some of these plates were subsequently used for Cooper's ‘Memorials of Cambridge.’ He engraved, after J. M. W. Turner, R.A., ‘Rome from the Farnese Gardens’ for Hakewill's ‘Italy,’ and ‘St. Agatha's Abbey, Easby,’ for Whitaker's ‘History of Richmondshire.’ Le Keux's engravings did much to disseminate a taste for