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Speaker 1: In fact, they did rather better than they thought they

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Speaker 1: were going to do, because her uncle as well, who'd

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Speaker 1: adopted her, had actually also been playing funny baggers with

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Speaker 1: the money and had made put a lot of it

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Speaker 1: into his own accounts, so that came back to her.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is

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Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's

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Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today we're back with part two of the

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Speaker 2: story of Letitia Leek with Professor Carrol Gerbich. Make sure

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Speaker 2: you listened to part one first. As we heard in

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Speaker 2: part one, Latitia's world was torn apart when sordid allegations

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Speaker 2: were aired that her late father may have been a

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Speaker 2: murderer and that she could be illegitimate and not entitled

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Speaker 2: to the inheritance she had received. Let's jump back in

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Speaker 2: and find out what the ramifications were for Letitia. So

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Speaker 2: was there a real threat here that Letitia could have

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Speaker 2: been stripped of her fortune amid all these swirling allegations.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I think there was a reasonable assumption that could

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Speaker 1: actually have happened, because what the trustees and the family

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Speaker 1: did then was employee some lawyers in Adelaide. Charles Kingston

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Speaker 1: and George Ash. And George Ash had actually been a

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Speaker 1: journalist done in the Southeast with The Bad to Watch,

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Speaker 1: which is a paper that still exists, and his job

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Speaker 1: was to dig up dirt, was to go there, to

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Speaker 1: interview all the people he could find, to write it

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Speaker 1: all up, to send in long hand all these transcripts

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Speaker 1: every night to his partner Charles Kingston, and basically to

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Speaker 1: find enough dirt so that they could win this core

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Speaker 1: case and relieve Letitia of the money. And it's actually

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Speaker 1: a wonderful Docum managed to find the document. It's about

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Speaker 1: three hundred pages. I found it done Tasmania down in

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Speaker 1: the depths of one of the libraries and it's a

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Speaker 1: I mean, you think social media is bad these days,

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Speaker 1: my goodness, this is wonderful stories of very respectable people

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Speaker 1: in the community, very high leveled people often you know,

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Speaker 1: doctors and lawyers and so forth, in neighbors and so forth, policemen,

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Speaker 1: and their view of the of the family, of the

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Speaker 1: Leake family as it was very interesting and they all

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Speaker 1: had stories to tell and they were prepared to stand

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Speaker 1: up and court and repeat them. So we presume they

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Speaker 1: believed that they were true. What were they saying, Oh,

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Speaker 1: they were telling all sorts of stories about how how

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Speaker 1: Edward would wander around the house in a shirt of

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Speaker 1: waving his genitals at any of the female people who

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Speaker 1: were employed on the property, and how he spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time I'm in the Aboriginal tense, was particularly

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Speaker 1: with one or two of the Aboriginal woman, and how Amanda.

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Speaker 1: It was one lovely story. What was it? That's right?

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Speaker 1: And they must have still been in the town before

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Speaker 1: they moved on to the estate. Anyway, someone was walking

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Speaker 1: past an alleyway and looked down, and the woman realized

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Speaker 1: that it was her husband and the phrase was having communication,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, wonder what that means, and I hadn't

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Speaker 1: look looked up a bit. No, she's actually having sex.

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Speaker 1: So her husband she saw and Amanda were actually having

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Speaker 1: a stand up sex job in an alleyway. And she

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Speaker 1: was so furious she raced down the alleyway, ripped Amanda's

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Speaker 1: rather beautiful silk dress off her, made it all up

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Speaker 1: for herself, and then salied out around town telling stories

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Speaker 1: about how terrible her husband was. So seemed to be

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stories. And I seem to had a

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Speaker 1: very open and rather wildlife, but very interesting, I'll say. So.

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Speaker 2: Did all of these allegations end up being aired in court?

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Speaker 1: No, it was fairly obvious. It was only circumstantial evidence,

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Speaker 1: and so everything was settled out of court, and they

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Speaker 1: basically caught the next boat out of TASMANI sold up

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Speaker 1: their properties immediately and headed for England.

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Speaker 2: So they had to pay a chunk of money, but

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Speaker 2: they kept the vast majority of Letitia's.

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Speaker 1: Fortune absolutely absolutely. In fact, they did rather better than

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Speaker 1: they thought they were going to do. Because her uncle,

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Speaker 1: as well had adopted her, had actually also been playing

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Speaker 1: funny buggers with the money and had made put a

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Speaker 1: lot of it into his own accounts, so that came

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Speaker 1: back to her. The will had to be adjusted. So

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Speaker 1: they did very well out of it.

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Speaker 2: And what did they do? What they do once they

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Speaker 2: reached England.

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Speaker 1: Once I reached England, they bought this rather beautiful property

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Speaker 1: called at a little town called Harefield, about twenty miles

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Speaker 1: north of London. It's a three story mansion with about

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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty acres, and they really just settled

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Speaker 1: down and had a very lovely expatriate sort of life.

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Speaker 1: Got to know lots of interesting people entertained lots of

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Speaker 1: people from Australia, had three children, two boys and a girl,

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Speaker 1: and really didn't seem to do anything very exciting at

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Speaker 1: all that I could identify, until the First World War

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Speaker 1: broke out and then everything changed.

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Speaker 2: I guess it was sad in some ways that the

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Speaker 2: teacher had to leave behind Australia, but in other ways,

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Speaker 2: you know, her family had really disowned her in a

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Speaker 2: lot of ways. I guess it was only her little

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Speaker 2: brother that she would have been sad to leave behind.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And it's interesting that when they did visit Australia,

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Speaker 1: there never went anywhere there to Mania, and the place

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Speaker 1: that they spent most of the time was actually New

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Speaker 1: South Wales, where his family was, but also where her

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Speaker 1: brother was. And she had been very good to her

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Speaker 1: brother and made sure that he had plenty of money

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Speaker 1: to live on, made sure he was properly educated at

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Speaker 1: private schools in New South Wales, and she also paid

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Speaker 1: for four of his sons to have private boarding school

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Speaker 1: education as well. So and then when he died fairly young,

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Speaker 1: she also supported his wife and children. So she was

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Speaker 1: I think a fairly caring person.

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Speaker 2: Now, I would love you to take us forward to

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Speaker 2: the Great War, because what they did during that time

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Speaker 2: is quite incredible. But I do find it hard to

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Speaker 2: imagine just the two of them rattling around in that

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Speaker 2: huge house, because when you realize that it was turned

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Speaker 2: into a hospital for soldiers, you can only imagine how

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Speaker 2: huge it must have been, and therefore far too big

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Speaker 2: for just a couple and their three children and presumably

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Speaker 2: a number of staff.

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Speaker 1: Yes, this is really Yes, this is the frustration I

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Speaker 1: think of trying to be a historian and not actually

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Speaker 1: having information. I did try very hard to contact people

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Speaker 1: in Harefield and historical societies and got lots of photos

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Speaker 1: and things. Everyone knew about the wartime, but prior to that,

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Speaker 1: it's almost like a veil of silence. I think another

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Speaker 1: person is going to have to look into that and

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Speaker 1: see what actually did happen. But because I don't know,

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Speaker 1: sadly well.

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Speaker 2: Tell us about the years of World War One? So

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Speaker 2: how did it come to become a hospital wounded Australian soldiers?

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, it seems that they were both sort of

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Speaker 1: probably listening to the radio on the day that war

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Speaker 1: was announced, and Leticia just apparently immediately raced to her bureau,

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Speaker 1: got out pen and paper and wrote a letter to

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Speaker 1: the Australian Ministry of Defense offering their property as a

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Speaker 1: hospital for wounded Australian servicemen, and the Ministry of Defense

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Speaker 1: apparently wrote back immediately accepting their offer and saying, yes,

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Speaker 1: this will become Australian Auxiliary Hospital number one, and we've

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Speaker 1: already sent six nurses and two doctors to help.

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Speaker 2: You.

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Speaker 1: Say about set the place up as a convalescent hospital

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Speaker 1: and it won't be too bad. You'll only have about

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Speaker 1: fifty patients in winter and about one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: in summer. Wow, that did not happen, unfortunately, Gallipally occurred

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Speaker 1: almost immediately and a huge number of nurses and doctors

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Speaker 1: were sent another about seventy of them were sent on boats.

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Speaker 1: But with Gallipoli, unfortunately, the numbers of wounded Australians and

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Speaker 1: New Zealanders of course just flooded into England and it

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Speaker 1: exceeded the hospital space that was already available in hospitals

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Speaker 1: with sort of proper operating facilities. So they were all

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Speaker 1: sent down to Hairfield and instead of the one hundred patients,

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Speaker 1: they ended up with a thousand, and over the period

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Speaker 1: of the war they still haven't got accurate figures on this,

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Speaker 1: but they said at least fifty thousand, possibly one hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand patients went through this hospital, and of course it

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Speaker 1: became immediately a full operating hospital, so.

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Speaker 2: So and up to one thousand at one time could

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Speaker 2: be inside. So the actual home must have been enormous

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Speaker 2: or did they have to extend it.

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Speaker 1: No, they it was fortunate they had this two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty acres because they're about fifty wards temporary wards

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Speaker 1: built on the land and I think and some of

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Speaker 1: the main part of the house was used. Letitia and

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Speaker 1: Charles decided not to stay in the house, so just

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Speaker 1: when they stayed in a very tiny cottage called the

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Speaker 1: Milk House or something like that with their daughter. The

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Speaker 1: two boys were in the navy. But they what I

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Speaker 1: think was really exciting about it. Instead of just sitting

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Speaker 1: in their little cottage and saying, oh, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I hope it will all end soon. This is really awful,

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Speaker 1: they said, no, no, no, you know, we're Australians. These

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Speaker 1: are Australian people. We must make their time here a

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Speaker 1: really memorable and a happy time. And they went out

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Speaker 1: of their way to do virtually everything you could think

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Speaker 1: of to make it comfortable. The first thing Latisia did

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Speaker 1: was said, well, I'm going to be chairperson of the

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Speaker 1: canteen committee. I'll be in charge of the food. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it was probably a pretty big asked to

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Speaker 1: be tie in charge of the food for say one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people, But when you've got a thousand

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Speaker 1: and you have to see them three times a day,

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Speaker 1: and this rationing and this petrol rationing, food rationing, it

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Speaker 1: was being a hell of a job to do, and

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Speaker 1: I think she was a deal with it very intelligently.

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Speaker 1: The first thing she did was put a note in

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Speaker 1: the London papers and said, you know, we have all

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Speaker 1: these Australian soldiers and New Zealand soldiers down here who

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Speaker 1: were wounded. Anyone who's visiting England from the home countries,

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Speaker 1: our patients would love to have visitors, and they had

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Speaker 1: a whole swag of them. Suddenly, everybody who was anybody

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Speaker 1: from Australia or New Zealand immediately would put Harefield on

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Speaker 1: their visiting list while they visited England. So we are

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Speaker 1: prime ministers, and they had religious people, they had heads

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Speaker 1: of state and heads of the military. There was a

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Speaker 1: huge name a list of names that have gone through,

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Speaker 1: and of course also George the Fifth and Queen Mary

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Speaker 1: came down and at that time they only had four

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Speaker 1: hundred patients, but they spent the whole day and they

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Speaker 1: apparently spoke to every single patient, so it wasn't just

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Speaker 1: a fly through and you know, where's my photo opportunity.

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Speaker 1: It was a really genuine visit. So and not only

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Speaker 1: did visitors come, but apparently the paper also went out

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Speaker 1: to the local villagers and people just came to anyone

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Speaker 1: who called. Women who are older women who went part

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Speaker 1: of the war effort, men who weren't able to go

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Speaker 1: to war, suddenly just turned up on the doorstep of

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Speaker 1: the hospital and said we're here to volunteer. We'll help you.

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Speaker 1: AND's some lovely pictures of their kitchen which you can

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Speaker 1: see these huge quadrons of food being stirred by a

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Speaker 1: quite elderly gentlemen, quite elderly women who have all come

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Speaker 1: to volunteers. So it's really really lovely that she managed

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Speaker 1: to do that.

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Speaker 2: They're all just local volunteers from the villages, are they.

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Speaker 1: That's incredible totally, and they'd all sorts of things and

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Speaker 1: take when the men are a bit more mobile. They

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Speaker 1: take them if they had a car and had some petrol,

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Speaker 1: to take them for a picnic or a drive up

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Speaker 1: to London, and they bring down entertainers to give concerts,

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Speaker 1: and apparrently some of them spoke French, so they come

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Speaker 1: into the hospital and take and hold French classes them.

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Speaker 1: For the Australians, there was also a number of them

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Speaker 1: were very good at embroidery, and there's this beautiful picture

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Speaker 1: of a whole lot of Australian soldiers sitting up in

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Speaker 1: their beds focused totally on their very fine embroidery that

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Speaker 1: they're doing for cushion covers, and they look so serious.

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Speaker 1: It's wonderful. But they also I think it really went

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Speaker 1: out of their way to do things like finding mascots.

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Speaker 1: There was Jimmy the Wallaby. I don't know where he

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Speaker 1: came from, but he hops in and out of so

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Speaker 1: many pictures and he obviously lives in the wards as well.

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Speaker 1: And there was a white copper too, which coming from

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Speaker 1: the Turkish trenches, which could say in German, you know,

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Speaker 1: kill the Kaiser or something like that, and he's been

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Speaker 1: carried around by a lot of the soldiers as well,

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Speaker 1: and he also Charles is particularly good at sort of

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Speaker 1: physical activity, so he made sure that there was a

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Speaker 1: lake in front of the hospital and he made sure

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Speaker 1: that was clear so that people could swim in it

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Speaker 1: in summer and ice skate when you can see soldiers,

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Speaker 1: you know, pushing chairs around trying to learn to ice

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Speaker 1: skate on it. And Charles was particularly concerned about the

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Speaker 1: fact that the majority of operations that were done over

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Speaker 1: six hundred were actually amputations and yes, and so he

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Speaker 1: did a lot of research himself and put his letitious

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Speaker 1: money into a workshop on the estate where they trained

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Speaker 1: people to produce these any volunteers or even patients themselves

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Speaker 1: to produce these leg processes. And you can see those

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Speaker 1: photos of them where they're standing obviously without one leg,

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Speaker 1: but holding their wooden leg which they're now about to

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Speaker 1: put on and learn how to walk. So I think

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Speaker 1: they really went out of their way to make the

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Speaker 1: place a home and to end for it to be

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Speaker 1: part of part of an Australian situation. You can see

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Speaker 1: and the notes that go home, the letters that go home,

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Speaker 1: they're saying, oh, it's really lovely to be here. You

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Speaker 1: know that there are Australian people own it and all

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Speaker 1: the staff are Australian. You know, we feel at home here,

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Speaker 1: we feel comfortable. They understand us. The English people don't

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Speaker 1: understand us. You said that became almost a tribal thing

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Speaker 1: going on there, because it would have been wonderful.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back soon to find out what happened to

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Speaker 2: Letitia next, so stay with us and sadly, Carol. Obviously

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Speaker 2: there were a number of Australian soldiers who passed away

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Speaker 2: at the hospital. Tell us about what happened when someone

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Speaker 2: did pass away.

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, firstly, there were not too many passing away.

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Speaker 1: There were one hundred and twenty out of the fifty thousand,

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Speaker 1: and most of them actually didn't die from wounds, so

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Speaker 1: it must have been a fairly reasonable hospital. But they

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Speaker 1: died from the Spanish flu which swept through England in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. And what would happen if somebody died would

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Speaker 1: be firstly the procession through the town and all the

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Speaker 1: soldiers who were able to walk would line up along

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Speaker 1: the town and follow the coffin, and all the townspeople

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Speaker 1: would follow as well, and the children would come out

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Speaker 1: of the school and they'd line up the streets as well,

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Speaker 1: and that noticed. What happened with the first one was

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Speaker 1: that the teacher who'd lined up all his children looked

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Speaker 1: over to the coffin and realized it had no flag

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Speaker 1: on it. It should actually have had an Australian but

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Speaker 1: of course they didn't have an Australian flag. So he hopped

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Speaker 1: into the classroom and took down the union jack off

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Speaker 1: the wall and put that over the coffin, and that

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Speaker 1: union jack accompanied the one hundred and twenty men who

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Speaker 1: died to the churchyard of Saint Mary's where they were

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Speaker 1: all buried. The burial was paid for by a person

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Speaker 1: from Tasmania who eventually became the premier, and he also

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Speaker 1: bought and paid for all the plots as well, so

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Speaker 1: that was very very generous act. And Letitia also got

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Speaker 1: the Spanish flu and was fairly unwell, and sadly she

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Speaker 1: wasn't particularly well after the war, largely because of this flu,

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Speaker 1: and she died in nineteen twenty three at the age

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Speaker 1: of sixty four and is buried in the churchyard. Charles

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Speaker 1: lasted about another ten years and was often in Monte

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Speaker 1: Carlo in a rather beautiful silver rolls Royce that he

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Speaker 1: joined her. Eventually there as well. And I think one

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Speaker 1: of the lovely things about this place which shows the

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Speaker 1: long term commitment of the town toward Australia, is it

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Speaker 1: since nineteen eighteen they have always held an Anzac service

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Speaker 1: on Anzac Day and the whole town attends and as

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Speaker 1: a proper and military service, and it's run by the

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Speaker 1: vicar and there's a choir. But the loveliest thing I

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Speaker 1: think is that the children of the town all attend

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Speaker 1: and they all carry flowers and they put those flowers

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Speaker 1: on the graves of the Australian soldiers. I think that's

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Speaker 1: just a lovely connection.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing. And what happened to Harefield Park is that

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Speaker 2: something that you can go and visit now and learn

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Speaker 2: more about the period during the war and how it

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Speaker 2: was used as a hospital for the ANZACs.

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Speaker 1: Not really unfortunately. Lot part well that the actual house

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Speaker 1: that they had is largely in ruins my understanding, but

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Speaker 1: they didn't keep the property. They sold it to the

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Speaker 1: English government after the war and it became a TP

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Speaker 1: sanatorium and now it's the premiere cardiac facility for England.

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Speaker 1: So it is now that's still a hospital still operating,

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Speaker 1: but the house itself is not as in disrepair, and

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Speaker 1: they don't seem to be able to raise enough money

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Speaker 1: unfortunately to repair it. So that's a little bit sad.

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Speaker 2: And what about the rest of the Leak family remaining

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Speaker 2: in Australia. Is there any more to the story there?

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Speaker 1: Well? Starting with the children of Letitia and Charles, they

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Speaker 1: had three. The daughter was the one who was probably

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Speaker 1: a teenager during the war, and she helped Letitia in

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Speaker 1: the kitchen and in the woods, and she married a

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Speaker 1: Russian prince, so she seems to have done quite well.

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Speaker 1: And the youngest one was still at Dartmouth in naval school,

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Speaker 1: so he never got to the war, and he ended

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Speaker 1: up in Africa where they bought a lot of properties.

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Speaker 1: And the eldest boy, who was another Edward, he did

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Speaker 1: very well in the Battle of Brugue in Belgium and

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Speaker 1: saved the lives of a lot of people, though it

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Speaker 1: was only twenty two at the time, and he received

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Speaker 1: a lot of medals. He received a request from Lord

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Speaker 1: Louis mount Batton and the Prince of Wales to ask

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Speaker 1: Edward if they would accompany them to Australia because they

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Speaker 1: were going to do a tour to Australia to thank

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Speaker 1: the Australian people for their support during World War One.

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Speaker 1: I think was lovely. Now he did very well. He

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Speaker 1: actually we had about four celebrity marriages, but one of

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Speaker 1: them was to Lord Louis mount Batton's sister in law.

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Speaker 1: So now he and his wife and their children and

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Speaker 1: grandchildren are now all listed in de bred and so

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Speaker 1: they're part of the English aristocracy. One of them lives

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Speaker 1: up in North Queenstance and he thinks it's an absolute hope, but.

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Speaker 2: Amazing. So the book is called The Accidental Heiress. Have

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Speaker 2: you finished researching the story of Letitia Leek or do

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Speaker 2: you think that this is a story that you would

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Speaker 2: just keep researching because there are still holes in the story,

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Speaker 2: aren't there? I mean, there are still more answers that

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Speaker 2: you need to find.

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Speaker 1: No. No, And every time I give a talk about it,

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Speaker 1: somebody comes up and says, oh, did you know and

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Speaker 1: my father or my grandfather and I can tell you,

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, no, I wish I'd known all

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Speaker 1: this beforehand. It's an ongoing thing. I think until I die,

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Speaker 1: I'll be collecting information about it.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps a second edition. So it's called The accidental airess.

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Speaker 2: Where can people buy the book Carol online?

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Speaker 1: From the Adelaide booksellers, which of course are in Adelaide,

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Speaker 1: but they to be very efficient and quick. That's the

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Speaker 1: main outlet that we have at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Fantastic, and we'll pop a link in the show notes

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Speaker 2: to this episode so that people can easily order a

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Speaker 2: copy online. Well, thank you so much for sharing that story.

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Speaker 2: It's just full of intrigue, isn't it? Full of scandal

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Speaker 2: and intrigue, So thank you so much for sharing it

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Speaker 2: with us today, Carol.

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Speaker 1: It's absolute pleasure.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Jan, Thank you, thanks for listening. This has

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Speaker 2: been In Black and White, a podcast about some of

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Speaker 2: Australia's forgotten characters, written and hosted by me Jen Kelly,

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Speaker 2: edited by Nina Young and produced by John ty Burton.

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Speaker 2: You can find all the stories and photos associated with

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Speaker 2: our episodes at Haroldsun dot com dot au slash ib aw.

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Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd love you to leave

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Speaker 2: a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Even better, leave

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Speaker 2: a review. Any comments or questions please email me at

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Speaker 2: in black and White at haroldsun dot com dot A.

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Speaker 2: You any clarifications or updates will appear in the show

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Speaker 2: notes for each episode, and to get notified when each

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Speaker 2: new episode comes out, make sure you subscribe to the

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