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7 unusual facts about Edward Chandos Leigh


Baron Leigh

The Honourable Sir Edward Chandos Leigh, second son of the first Baron, was a cricketer and barrister.

Edward Chandos Leigh

He died, in the same year as W. G. Grace and his good friend Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, of a broken heart mourning the loss of his two sons and the end of the golden age of cricket.

Leigh started playing cricket as a boy at Stoneleigh Abbey after his father Lord Leigh, Lord Byron's schoolmate at Harrow, established a cricket ground at his country estate at Stoneleigh Abbey in 1839 for his eldest son William Henry Leigh who was attending Harrow.

The Honourable Sir Edward Chandos Leigh, KCB, KC (on 22 December 1832 – 18 May 1915), was a British cricketer and barrister.

Leigh was born at Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, the second son of Chandos Leigh, 1st Baron Leigh, and Margarette Willes, daughter of Reverend William Shippen Willes, of Astrop House, Northamptonshire.

Leigh's cricketing career and first class stats might be considered average but he was a popular choice as President of the MCC in its first centenary year in 1887 and the Golden Jubilee year of Queen Victoria.

In the New Year´s Honours list 1901 he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).


Stoneleigh Cricket Club

The club was formed in 1839 by Chandos Leigh, 1st Baron Leigh and the ground was established in front of the West Wing of Stoneleigh Abbey for the benefit of his sons William Henry Leigh and Edward Chandos Leigh so that they might continue to play cricket in the summer on returning home from Harrow School.


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