In fact, they did rather better than they thought they were going to do, because her uncle as well, who'd adopted her, had actually also been playing funny baggers with the money and had made put a lot of it into his own accounts, so that came back to her.
I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters. Today we're back with part two of the story of Letitia Leek with Professor Carrol Gerbich. Make sure you listened to part one first. As we heard in part one, Latitia's world was torn apart when sordid allegations were aired that her late father may have been a murderer and that she could be illegitimate and not entitled
to the inheritance she had received. Let's jump back in and find out what the ramifications were for Letitia. So was there a real threat here that Letitia could have been stripped of her fortune amid all these swirling allegations.
Yes, I think there was a reasonable assumption that could actually have happened, because what the trustees and the family did then was employee some lawyers in Adelaide. Charles Kingston
and George Ash. And George Ash had actually been a journalist done in the Southeast with The Bad to Watch, which is a paper that still exists, and his job was to dig up dirt, was to go there, to interview all the people he could find, to write it all up, to send in long hand all these transcripts every night to his partner Charles Kingston, and basically to find enough dirt so that they could win this core case and relieve Letitia of the money. And it's actually
a wonderful Docum managed to find the document. It's about
three hundred pages. I found it done Tasmania down in the depths of one of the libraries and it's a I mean, you think social media is bad these days, my goodness, this is wonderful stories of very respectable people in the community, very high leveled people often you know, doctors and lawyers and so forth, in neighbors and so forth, policemen, and their view of the of the family, of the Leake family as it was very interesting and they all had stories to tell and they were prepared to stand
up and court and repeat them. So we presume they believed that they were true. What were they saying, Oh, they were telling all sorts of stories about how how Edward would wander around the house in a shirt of waving his genitals at any of the female people who were employed on the property, and how he spent a lot of time I'm in the Aboriginal tense, was particularly with one or two of the Aboriginal woman, and how Amanda. It was one lovely story. What was it? That's right?
And they must have still been in the town before they moved on to the estate. Anyway, someone was walking past an alleyway and looked down, and the woman realized that it was her husband and the phrase was having communication, and I thought, wonder what that means, and I hadn't look looked up a bit. No, she's actually having sex. So her husband she saw and Amanda were actually having
a stand up sex job in an alleyway. And she was so furious she raced down the alleyway, ripped Amanda's rather beautiful silk dress off her, made it all up for herself, and then salied out around town telling stories about how terrible her husband was. So seemed to be all sorts of stories. And I seem to had a very open and rather wildlife, but very interesting, I'll say. So.
Did all of these allegations end up being aired in court?
No, it was fairly obvious. It was only circumstantial evidence, and so everything was settled out of court, and they basically caught the next boat out of TASMANI sold up their properties immediately and headed for England.
So they had to pay a chunk of money, but they kept the vast majority of Letitia's.
Fortune absolutely absolutely. In fact, they did rather better than they thought they were going to do. Because her uncle, as well had adopted her, had actually also been playing funny buggers with the money and had made put a lot of it into his own accounts, so that came back to her. The will had to be adjusted. So they did very well out of it.
And what did they do? What they do once they reached England.
Once I reached England, they bought this rather beautiful property called at a little town called Harefield, about twenty miles north of London. It's a three story mansion with about two hundred and fifty acres, and they really just settled down and had a very lovely expatriate sort of life.
Got to know lots of interesting people entertained lots of people from Australia, had three children, two boys and a girl, and really didn't seem to do anything very exciting at all that I could identify, until the First World War broke out and then everything changed.
I guess it was sad in some ways that the teacher had to leave behind Australia, but in other ways, you know, her family had really disowned her in a lot of ways. I guess it was only her little brother that she would have been sad to leave behind.
Absolutely, And it's interesting that when they did visit Australia, there never went anywhere there to Mania, and the place that they spent most of the time was actually New South Wales, where his family was, but also where her brother was. And she had been very good to her brother and made sure that he had plenty of money to live on, made sure he was properly educated at private schools in New South Wales, and she also paid for four of his sons to have private boarding school
education as well. So and then when he died fairly young, she also supported his wife and children. So she was I think a fairly caring person.
Now, I would love you to take us forward to the Great War, because what they did during that time is quite incredible. But I do find it hard to imagine just the two of them rattling around in that huge house, because when you realize that it was turned into a hospital for soldiers, you can only imagine how huge it must have been, and therefore far too big for just a couple and their three children and presumably a number of staff.
Yes, this is really Yes, this is the frustration I think of trying to be a historian and not actually having information. I did try very hard to contact people in Harefield and historical societies and got lots of photos and things. Everyone knew about the wartime, but prior to that, it's almost like a veil of silence. I think another person is going to have to look into that and see what actually did happen. But because I don't know, sadly well.
Tell us about the years of World War One? So how did it come to become a hospital wounded Australian soldiers?
Yes, well, it seems that they were both sort of probably listening to the radio on the day that war was announced, and Leticia just apparently immediately raced to her bureau, got out pen and paper and wrote a letter to the Australian Ministry of Defense offering their property as a hospital for wounded Australian servicemen, and the Ministry of Defense apparently wrote back immediately accepting their offer and saying, yes, this will become Australian Auxiliary Hospital number one, and we've
already sent six nurses and two doctors to help.
You.
Say about set the place up as a convalescent hospital and it won't be too bad. You'll only have about fifty patients in winter and about one hundred and fifty in summer. Wow, that did not happen, unfortunately, Gallipally occurred almost immediately and a huge number of nurses and doctors were sent another about seventy of them were sent on boats.
But with Gallipoli, unfortunately, the numbers of wounded Australians and New Zealanders of course just flooded into England and it exceeded the hospital space that was already available in hospitals
with sort of proper operating facilities. So they were all sent down to Hairfield and instead of the one hundred patients, they ended up with a thousand, and over the period of the war they still haven't got accurate figures on this, but they said at least fifty thousand, possibly one hundred thousand patients went through this hospital, and of course it became immediately a full operating hospital, so.
So and up to one thousand at one time could be inside. So the actual home must have been enormous or did they have to extend it.
No, they it was fortunate they had this two hundred and fifty acres because they're about fifty wards temporary wards built on the land and I think and some of the main part of the house was used. Letitia and Charles decided not to stay in the house, so just when they stayed in a very tiny cottage called the Milk House or something like that with their daughter. The two boys were in the navy. But they what I
think was really exciting about it. Instead of just sitting in their little cottage and saying, oh, well, you know, I hope it will all end soon. This is really awful, they said, no, no, no, you know, we're Australians. These are Australian people. We must make their time here a really memorable and a happy time. And they went out of their way to do virtually everything you could think of to make it comfortable. The first thing Latisia did was said, well, I'm going to be chairperson of the
canteen committee. I'll be in charge of the food. Well, I mean it was probably a pretty big asked to be tie in charge of the food for say one hundred and fifty people, But when you've got a thousand and you have to see them three times a day, and this rationing and this petrol rationing, food rationing, it was being a hell of a job to do, and I think she was a deal with it very intelligently.
The first thing she did was put a note in the London papers and said, you know, we have all these Australian soldiers and New Zealand soldiers down here who were wounded. Anyone who's visiting England from the home countries, our patients would love to have visitors, and they had a whole swag of them. Suddenly, everybody who was anybody from Australia or New Zealand immediately would put Harefield on
their visiting list while they visited England. So we are prime ministers, and they had religious people, they had heads of state and heads of the military. There was a huge name a list of names that have gone through, and of course also George the Fifth and Queen Mary came down and at that time they only had four hundred patients, but they spent the whole day and they apparently spoke to every single patient, so it wasn't just a fly through and you know, where's my photo opportunity.
It was a really genuine visit. So and not only did visitors come, but apparently the paper also went out to the local villagers and people just came to anyone who called. Women who are older women who went part of the war effort, men who weren't able to go to war, suddenly just turned up on the doorstep of the hospital and said we're here to volunteer. We'll help you.
AND's some lovely pictures of their kitchen which you can see these huge quadrons of food being stirred by a quite elderly gentlemen, quite elderly women who have all come to volunteers. So it's really really lovely that she managed to do that.
They're all just local volunteers from the villages, are they.
That's incredible totally, and they'd all sorts of things and take when the men are a bit more mobile. They take them if they had a car and had some petrol, to take them for a picnic or a drive up to London, and they bring down entertainers to give concerts, and apparrently some of them spoke French, so they come into the hospital and take and hold French classes them.
For the Australians, there was also a number of them were very good at embroidery, and there's this beautiful picture of a whole lot of Australian soldiers sitting up in their beds focused totally on their very fine embroidery that they're doing for cushion covers, and they look so serious. It's wonderful. But they also I think it really went out of their way to do things like finding mascots.
There was Jimmy the Wallaby. I don't know where he came from, but he hops in and out of so many pictures and he obviously lives in the wards as well.
And there was a white copper too, which coming from the Turkish trenches, which could say in German, you know, kill the Kaiser or something like that, and he's been carried around by a lot of the soldiers as well, and he also Charles is particularly good at sort of physical activity, so he made sure that there was a lake in front of the hospital and he made sure that was clear so that people could swim in it in summer and ice skate when you can see soldiers,
you know, pushing chairs around trying to learn to ice skate on it. And Charles was particularly concerned about the fact that the majority of operations that were done over six hundred were actually amputations and yes, and so he did a lot of research himself and put his letitious money into a workshop on the estate where they trained people to produce these any volunteers or even patients themselves
to produce these leg processes. And you can see those photos of them where they're standing obviously without one leg, but holding their wooden leg which they're now about to put on and learn how to walk. So I think they really went out of their way to make the place a home and to end for it to be part of part of an Australian situation. You can see and the notes that go home, the letters that go home,
they're saying, oh, it's really lovely to be here. You know that there are Australian people own it and all the staff are Australian. You know, we feel at home here, we feel comfortable. They understand us. The English people don't understand us. You said that became almost a tribal thing going on there, because it would have been wonderful.
We'll be back soon to find out what happened to Letitia next, so stay with us and sadly, Carol. Obviously there were a number of Australian soldiers who passed away at the hospital. Tell us about what happened when someone did pass away.
Yes, well, firstly, there were not too many passing away. There were one hundred and twenty out of the fifty thousand, and most of them actually didn't die from wounds, so it must have been a fairly reasonable hospital. But they died from the Spanish flu which swept through England in
nineteen eighteen. And what would happen if somebody died would be firstly the procession through the town and all the soldiers who were able to walk would line up along the town and follow the coffin, and all the townspeople would follow as well, and the children would come out of the school and they'd line up the streets as well, and that noticed. What happened with the first one was that the teacher who'd lined up all his children looked over to the coffin and realized it had no flag
on it. It should actually have had an Australian but of course they didn't have an Australian flag. So he hopped into the classroom and took down the union jack off the wall and put that over the coffin, and that union jack accompanied the one hundred and twenty men who died to the churchyard of Saint Mary's where they were all buried. The burial was paid for by a person from Tasmania who eventually became the premier, and he also bought and paid for all the plots as well, so
that was very very generous act. And Letitia also got the Spanish flu and was fairly unwell, and sadly she wasn't particularly well after the war, largely because of this flu, and she died in nineteen twenty three at the age of sixty four and is buried in the churchyard. Charles lasted about another ten years and was often in Monte Carlo in a rather beautiful silver rolls Royce that he
joined her. Eventually there as well. And I think one of the lovely things about this place which shows the long term commitment of the town toward Australia, is it since nineteen eighteen they have always held an Anzac service on Anzac Day and the whole town attends and as a proper and military service, and it's run by the vicar and there's a choir. But the loveliest thing I think is that the children of the town all attend and they all carry flowers and they put those flowers
on the graves of the Australian soldiers. I think that's just a lovely connection.
That's amazing. And what happened to Harefield Park is that something that you can go and visit now and learn more about the period during the war and how it was used as a hospital for the ANZACs.
Not really unfortunately. Lot part well that the actual house that they had is largely in ruins my understanding, but they didn't keep the property. They sold it to the English government after the war and it became a TP sanatorium and now it's the premiere cardiac facility for England. So it is now that's still a hospital still operating, but the house itself is not as in disrepair, and they don't seem to be able to raise enough money unfortunately to repair it. So that's a little bit sad.
And what about the rest of the Leak family remaining in Australia. Is there any more to the story there?
Well? Starting with the children of Letitia and Charles, they had three. The daughter was the one who was probably a teenager during the war, and she helped Letitia in the kitchen and in the woods, and she married a Russian prince, so she seems to have done quite well. And the youngest one was still at Dartmouth in naval school, so he never got to the war, and he ended up in Africa where they bought a lot of properties.
And the eldest boy, who was another Edward, he did very well in the Battle of Brugue in Belgium and saved the lives of a lot of people, though it was only twenty two at the time, and he received a lot of medals. He received a request from Lord Louis mount Batton and the Prince of Wales to ask Edward if they would accompany them to Australia because they were going to do a tour to Australia to thank the Australian people for their support during World War One.
I think was lovely. Now he did very well. He actually we had about four celebrity marriages, but one of them was to Lord Louis mount Batton's sister in law. So now he and his wife and their children and grandchildren are now all listed in de bred and so they're part of the English aristocracy. One of them lives up in North Queenstance and he thinks it's an absolute hope, but.
Amazing. So the book is called The Accidental Heiress. Have you finished researching the story of Letitia Leek or do you think that this is a story that you would just keep researching because there are still holes in the story, aren't there? I mean, there are still more answers that you need to find.
No. No, And every time I give a talk about it, somebody comes up and says, oh, did you know and my father or my grandfather and I can tell you, And I'm like, oh, no, I wish I'd known all this beforehand. It's an ongoing thing. I think until I die, I'll be collecting information about it.
Perhaps a second edition. So it's called The accidental airess. Where can people buy the book Carol online?
From the Adelaide booksellers, which of course are in Adelaide, but they to be very efficient and quick. That's the main outlet that we have at the moment.
Fantastic, and we'll pop a link in the show notes to this episode so that people can easily order a copy online. Well, thank you so much for sharing that story. It's just full of intrigue, isn't it? Full of scandal and intrigue, So thank you so much for sharing it with us today, Carol.
It's absolute pleasure.
Thank you, Jan, Thank you, thanks for listening. This has been In Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters, written and hosted by me Jen Kelly, edited by Nina Young and produced by John ty Burton. You can find all the stories and photos associated with our episodes at Haroldsun dot com dot au slash ib aw. If you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd love you to leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Even better, leave
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