Speaker 1: In fact, they did rather better than they thought they
Speaker 1: were going to do, because her uncle as well, who'd
Speaker 1: adopted her, had actually also been playing funny baggers with
Speaker 1: the money and had made put a lot of it
Speaker 1: into his own accounts, so that came back to her.
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is
Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today we're back with part two of the
Speaker 2: story of Letitia Leek with Professor Carrol Gerbich. Make sure
Speaker 2: you listened to part one first. As we heard in
Speaker 2: part one, Latitia's world was torn apart when sordid allegations
Speaker 2: were aired that her late father may have been a
Speaker 2: murderer and that she could be illegitimate and not entitled
Speaker 2: to the inheritance she had received. Let's jump back in
Speaker 2: and find out what the ramifications were for Letitia. So
Speaker 2: was there a real threat here that Letitia could have
Speaker 2: been stripped of her fortune amid all these swirling allegations.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think there was a reasonable assumption that could
Speaker 1: actually have happened, because what the trustees and the family
Speaker 1: did then was employee some lawyers in Adelaide. Charles Kingston
Speaker 1: and George Ash. And George Ash had actually been a
Speaker 1: journalist done in the Southeast with The Bad to Watch,
Speaker 1: which is a paper that still exists, and his job
Speaker 1: was to dig up dirt, was to go there, to
Speaker 1: interview all the people he could find, to write it
Speaker 1: all up, to send in long hand all these transcripts
Speaker 1: every night to his partner Charles Kingston, and basically to
Speaker 1: find enough dirt so that they could win this core
Speaker 1: case and relieve Letitia of the money. And it's actually
Speaker 1: a wonderful Docum managed to find the document. It's about
Speaker 1: three hundred pages. I found it done Tasmania down in
Speaker 1: the depths of one of the libraries and it's a
Speaker 1: I mean, you think social media is bad these days,
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is wonderful stories of very respectable people
Speaker 1: in the community, very high leveled people often you know,
Speaker 1: doctors and lawyers and so forth, in neighbors and so forth, policemen,
Speaker 1: and their view of the of the family, of the
Speaker 1: Leake family as it was very interesting and they all
Speaker 1: had stories to tell and they were prepared to stand
Speaker 1: up and court and repeat them. So we presume they
Speaker 1: believed that they were true. What were they saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: they were telling all sorts of stories about how how
Speaker 1: Edward would wander around the house in a shirt of
Speaker 1: waving his genitals at any of the female people who
Speaker 1: were employed on the property, and how he spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time I'm in the Aboriginal tense, was particularly
Speaker 1: with one or two of the Aboriginal woman, and how Amanda.
Speaker 1: It was one lovely story. What was it? That's right?
Speaker 1: And they must have still been in the town before
Speaker 1: they moved on to the estate. Anyway, someone was walking
Speaker 1: past an alleyway and looked down, and the woman realized
Speaker 1: that it was her husband and the phrase was having communication,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wonder what that means, and I hadn't
Speaker 1: look looked up a bit. No, she's actually having sex.
Speaker 1: So her husband she saw and Amanda were actually having
Speaker 1: a stand up sex job in an alleyway. And she
Speaker 1: was so furious she raced down the alleyway, ripped Amanda's
Speaker 1: rather beautiful silk dress off her, made it all up
Speaker 1: for herself, and then salied out around town telling stories
Speaker 1: about how terrible her husband was. So seemed to be
Speaker 1: all sorts of stories. And I seem to had a
Speaker 1: very open and rather wildlife, but very interesting, I'll say. So.
Speaker 2: Did all of these allegations end up being aired in court?
Speaker 1: No, it was fairly obvious. It was only circumstantial evidence,
Speaker 1: and so everything was settled out of court, and they
Speaker 1: basically caught the next boat out of TASMANI sold up
Speaker 1: their properties immediately and headed for England.
Speaker 2: So they had to pay a chunk of money, but
Speaker 2: they kept the vast majority of Letitia's.
Speaker 1: Fortune absolutely absolutely. In fact, they did rather better than
Speaker 1: they thought they were going to do. Because her uncle,
Speaker 1: as well had adopted her, had actually also been playing
Speaker 1: funny buggers with the money and had made put a
Speaker 1: lot of it into his own accounts, so that came
Speaker 1: back to her. The will had to be adjusted. So
Speaker 1: they did very well out of it.
Speaker 2: And what did they do? What they do once they
Speaker 2: reached England.
Speaker 1: Once I reached England, they bought this rather beautiful property
Speaker 1: called at a little town called Harefield, about twenty miles
Speaker 1: north of London. It's a three story mansion with about
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty acres, and they really just settled
Speaker 1: down and had a very lovely expatriate sort of life.
Speaker 1: Got to know lots of interesting people entertained lots of
Speaker 1: people from Australia, had three children, two boys and a girl,
Speaker 1: and really didn't seem to do anything very exciting at
Speaker 1: all that I could identify, until the First World War
Speaker 1: broke out and then everything changed.
Speaker 2: I guess it was sad in some ways that the
Speaker 2: teacher had to leave behind Australia, but in other ways,
Speaker 2: you know, her family had really disowned her in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. I guess it was only her little
Speaker 2: brother that she would have been sad to leave behind.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And it's interesting that when they did visit Australia,
Speaker 1: there never went anywhere there to Mania, and the place
Speaker 1: that they spent most of the time was actually New
Speaker 1: South Wales, where his family was, but also where her
Speaker 1: brother was. And she had been very good to her
Speaker 1: brother and made sure that he had plenty of money
Speaker 1: to live on, made sure he was properly educated at
Speaker 1: private schools in New South Wales, and she also paid
Speaker 1: for four of his sons to have private boarding school
Speaker 1: education as well. So and then when he died fairly young,
Speaker 1: she also supported his wife and children. So she was
Speaker 1: I think a fairly caring person.
Speaker 2: Now, I would love you to take us forward to
Speaker 2: the Great War, because what they did during that time
Speaker 2: is quite incredible. But I do find it hard to
Speaker 2: imagine just the two of them rattling around in that
Speaker 2: huge house, because when you realize that it was turned
Speaker 2: into a hospital for soldiers, you can only imagine how
Speaker 2: huge it must have been, and therefore far too big
Speaker 2: for just a couple and their three children and presumably
Speaker 2: a number of staff.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is really Yes, this is the frustration I
Speaker 1: think of trying to be a historian and not actually
Speaker 1: having information. I did try very hard to contact people
Speaker 1: in Harefield and historical societies and got lots of photos
Speaker 1: and things. Everyone knew about the wartime, but prior to that,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a veil of silence. I think another
Speaker 1: person is going to have to look into that and
Speaker 1: see what actually did happen. But because I don't know,
Speaker 1: sadly well.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the years of World War One? So
Speaker 2: how did it come to become a hospital wounded Australian soldiers?
Speaker 1: Yes, well, it seems that they were both sort of
Speaker 1: probably listening to the radio on the day that war
Speaker 1: was announced, and Leticia just apparently immediately raced to her bureau,
Speaker 1: got out pen and paper and wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: the Australian Ministry of Defense offering their property as a
Speaker 1: hospital for wounded Australian servicemen, and the Ministry of Defense
Speaker 1: apparently wrote back immediately accepting their offer and saying, yes,
Speaker 1: this will become Australian Auxiliary Hospital number one, and we've
Speaker 1: already sent six nurses and two doctors to help.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: Say about set the place up as a convalescent hospital
Speaker 1: and it won't be too bad. You'll only have about
Speaker 1: fifty patients in winter and about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: in summer. Wow, that did not happen, unfortunately, Gallipally occurred
Speaker 1: almost immediately and a huge number of nurses and doctors
Speaker 1: were sent another about seventy of them were sent on boats.
Speaker 1: But with Gallipoli, unfortunately, the numbers of wounded Australians and
Speaker 1: New Zealanders of course just flooded into England and it
Speaker 1: exceeded the hospital space that was already available in hospitals
Speaker 1: with sort of proper operating facilities. So they were all
Speaker 1: sent down to Hairfield and instead of the one hundred patients,
Speaker 1: they ended up with a thousand, and over the period
Speaker 1: of the war they still haven't got accurate figures on this,
Speaker 1: but they said at least fifty thousand, possibly one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand patients went through this hospital, and of course it
Speaker 1: became immediately a full operating hospital, so.
Speaker 2: So and up to one thousand at one time could
Speaker 2: be inside. So the actual home must have been enormous
Speaker 2: or did they have to extend it.
Speaker 1: No, they it was fortunate they had this two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty acres because they're about fifty wards temporary wards
Speaker 1: built on the land and I think and some of
Speaker 1: the main part of the house was used. Letitia and
Speaker 1: Charles decided not to stay in the house, so just
Speaker 1: when they stayed in a very tiny cottage called the
Speaker 1: Milk House or something like that with their daughter. The
Speaker 1: two boys were in the navy. But they what I
Speaker 1: think was really exciting about it. Instead of just sitting
Speaker 1: in their little cottage and saying, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I hope it will all end soon. This is really awful,
Speaker 1: they said, no, no, no, you know, we're Australians. These
Speaker 1: are Australian people. We must make their time here a
Speaker 1: really memorable and a happy time. And they went out
Speaker 1: of their way to do virtually everything you could think
Speaker 1: of to make it comfortable. The first thing Latisia did
Speaker 1: was said, well, I'm going to be chairperson of the
Speaker 1: canteen committee. I'll be in charge of the food. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it was probably a pretty big asked to
Speaker 1: be tie in charge of the food for say one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people, But when you've got a thousand
Speaker 1: and you have to see them three times a day,
Speaker 1: and this rationing and this petrol rationing, food rationing, it
Speaker 1: was being a hell of a job to do, and
Speaker 1: I think she was a deal with it very intelligently.
Speaker 1: The first thing she did was put a note in
Speaker 1: the London papers and said, you know, we have all
Speaker 1: these Australian soldiers and New Zealand soldiers down here who
Speaker 1: were wounded. Anyone who's visiting England from the home countries,
Speaker 1: our patients would love to have visitors, and they had
Speaker 1: a whole swag of them. Suddenly, everybody who was anybody
Speaker 1: from Australia or New Zealand immediately would put Harefield on
Speaker 1: their visiting list while they visited England. So we are
Speaker 1: prime ministers, and they had religious people, they had heads
Speaker 1: of state and heads of the military. There was a
Speaker 1: huge name a list of names that have gone through,
Speaker 1: and of course also George the Fifth and Queen Mary
Speaker 1: came down and at that time they only had four
Speaker 1: hundred patients, but they spent the whole day and they
Speaker 1: apparently spoke to every single patient, so it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a fly through and you know, where's my photo opportunity.
Speaker 1: It was a really genuine visit. So and not only
Speaker 1: did visitors come, but apparently the paper also went out
Speaker 1: to the local villagers and people just came to anyone
Speaker 1: who called. Women who are older women who went part
Speaker 1: of the war effort, men who weren't able to go
Speaker 1: to war, suddenly just turned up on the doorstep of
Speaker 1: the hospital and said we're here to volunteer. We'll help you.
Speaker 1: AND's some lovely pictures of their kitchen which you can
Speaker 1: see these huge quadrons of food being stirred by a
Speaker 1: quite elderly gentlemen, quite elderly women who have all come
Speaker 1: to volunteers. So it's really really lovely that she managed
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 2: They're all just local volunteers from the villages, are they.
Speaker 1: That's incredible totally, and they'd all sorts of things and
Speaker 1: take when the men are a bit more mobile. They
Speaker 1: take them if they had a car and had some petrol,
Speaker 1: to take them for a picnic or a drive up
Speaker 1: to London, and they bring down entertainers to give concerts,
Speaker 1: and apparrently some of them spoke French, so they come
Speaker 1: into the hospital and take and hold French classes them.
Speaker 1: For the Australians, there was also a number of them
Speaker 1: were very good at embroidery, and there's this beautiful picture
Speaker 1: of a whole lot of Australian soldiers sitting up in
Speaker 1: their beds focused totally on their very fine embroidery that
Speaker 1: they're doing for cushion covers, and they look so serious.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. But they also I think it really went
Speaker 1: out of their way to do things like finding mascots.
Speaker 1: There was Jimmy the Wallaby. I don't know where he
Speaker 1: came from, but he hops in and out of so
Speaker 1: many pictures and he obviously lives in the wards as well.
Speaker 1: And there was a white copper too, which coming from
Speaker 1: the Turkish trenches, which could say in German, you know,
Speaker 1: kill the Kaiser or something like that, and he's been
Speaker 1: carried around by a lot of the soldiers as well,
Speaker 1: and he also Charles is particularly good at sort of
Speaker 1: physical activity, so he made sure that there was a
Speaker 1: lake in front of the hospital and he made sure
Speaker 1: that was clear so that people could swim in it
Speaker 1: in summer and ice skate when you can see soldiers,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing chairs around trying to learn to ice
Speaker 1: skate on it. And Charles was particularly concerned about the
Speaker 1: fact that the majority of operations that were done over
Speaker 1: six hundred were actually amputations and yes, and so he
Speaker 1: did a lot of research himself and put his letitious
Speaker 1: money into a workshop on the estate where they trained
Speaker 1: people to produce these any volunteers or even patients themselves
Speaker 1: to produce these leg processes. And you can see those
Speaker 1: photos of them where they're standing obviously without one leg,
Speaker 1: but holding their wooden leg which they're now about to
Speaker 1: put on and learn how to walk. So I think
Speaker 1: they really went out of their way to make the
Speaker 1: place a home and to end for it to be
Speaker 1: part of part of an Australian situation. You can see
Speaker 1: and the notes that go home, the letters that go home,
Speaker 1: they're saying, oh, it's really lovely to be here. You
Speaker 1: know that there are Australian people own it and all
Speaker 1: the staff are Australian. You know, we feel at home here,
Speaker 1: we feel comfortable. They understand us. The English people don't
Speaker 1: understand us. You said that became almost a tribal thing
Speaker 1: going on there, because it would have been wonderful.
Speaker 2: We'll be back soon to find out what happened to
Speaker 2: Letitia next, so stay with us and sadly, Carol. Obviously
Speaker 2: there were a number of Australian soldiers who passed away
Speaker 2: at the hospital. Tell us about what happened when someone
Speaker 2: did pass away.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, firstly, there were not too many passing away.
Speaker 1: There were one hundred and twenty out of the fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: and most of them actually didn't die from wounds, so
Speaker 1: it must have been a fairly reasonable hospital. But they
Speaker 1: died from the Spanish flu which swept through England in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. And what would happen if somebody died would
Speaker 1: be firstly the procession through the town and all the
Speaker 1: soldiers who were able to walk would line up along
Speaker 1: the town and follow the coffin, and all the townspeople
Speaker 1: would follow as well, and the children would come out
Speaker 1: of the school and they'd line up the streets as well,
Speaker 1: and that noticed. What happened with the first one was
Speaker 1: that the teacher who'd lined up all his children looked
Speaker 1: over to the coffin and realized it had no flag
Speaker 1: on it. It should actually have had an Australian but
Speaker 1: of course they didn't have an Australian flag. So he hopped
Speaker 1: into the classroom and took down the union jack off
Speaker 1: the wall and put that over the coffin, and that
Speaker 1: union jack accompanied the one hundred and twenty men who
Speaker 1: died to the churchyard of Saint Mary's where they were
Speaker 1: all buried. The burial was paid for by a person
Speaker 1: from Tasmania who eventually became the premier, and he also
Speaker 1: bought and paid for all the plots as well, so
Speaker 1: that was very very generous act. And Letitia also got
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu and was fairly unwell, and sadly she
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly well after the war, largely because of this flu,
Speaker 1: and she died in nineteen twenty three at the age
Speaker 1: of sixty four and is buried in the churchyard. Charles
Speaker 1: lasted about another ten years and was often in Monte
Speaker 1: Carlo in a rather beautiful silver rolls Royce that he
Speaker 1: joined her. Eventually there as well. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the lovely things about this place which shows the
Speaker 1: long term commitment of the town toward Australia, is it
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighteen they have always held an Anzac service
Speaker 1: on Anzac Day and the whole town attends and as
Speaker 1: a proper and military service, and it's run by the
Speaker 1: vicar and there's a choir. But the loveliest thing I
Speaker 1: think is that the children of the town all attend
Speaker 1: and they all carry flowers and they put those flowers
Speaker 1: on the graves of the Australian soldiers. I think that's
Speaker 1: just a lovely connection.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. And what happened to Harefield Park is that
Speaker 2: something that you can go and visit now and learn
Speaker 2: more about the period during the war and how it
Speaker 2: was used as a hospital for the ANZACs.
Speaker 1: Not really unfortunately. Lot part well that the actual house
Speaker 1: that they had is largely in ruins my understanding, but
Speaker 1: they didn't keep the property. They sold it to the
Speaker 1: English government after the war and it became a TP
Speaker 1: sanatorium and now it's the premiere cardiac facility for England.
Speaker 1: So it is now that's still a hospital still operating,
Speaker 1: but the house itself is not as in disrepair, and
Speaker 1: they don't seem to be able to raise enough money
Speaker 1: unfortunately to repair it. So that's a little bit sad.
Speaker 2: And what about the rest of the Leak family remaining
Speaker 2: in Australia. Is there any more to the story there?
Speaker 1: Well? Starting with the children of Letitia and Charles, they
Speaker 1: had three. The daughter was the one who was probably
Speaker 1: a teenager during the war, and she helped Letitia in
Speaker 1: the kitchen and in the woods, and she married a
Speaker 1: Russian prince, so she seems to have done quite well.
Speaker 1: And the youngest one was still at Dartmouth in naval school,
Speaker 1: so he never got to the war, and he ended
Speaker 1: up in Africa where they bought a lot of properties.
Speaker 1: And the eldest boy, who was another Edward, he did
Speaker 1: very well in the Battle of Brugue in Belgium and
Speaker 1: saved the lives of a lot of people, though it
Speaker 1: was only twenty two at the time, and he received
Speaker 1: a lot of medals. He received a request from Lord
Speaker 1: Louis mount Batton and the Prince of Wales to ask
Speaker 1: Edward if they would accompany them to Australia because they
Speaker 1: were going to do a tour to Australia to thank
Speaker 1: the Australian people for their support during World War One.
Speaker 1: I think was lovely. Now he did very well. He
Speaker 1: actually we had about four celebrity marriages, but one of
Speaker 1: them was to Lord Louis mount Batton's sister in law.
Speaker 1: So now he and his wife and their children and
Speaker 1: grandchildren are now all listed in de bred and so
Speaker 1: they're part of the English aristocracy. One of them lives
Speaker 1: up in North Queenstance and he thinks it's an absolute hope, but.
Speaker 2: Amazing. So the book is called The Accidental Heiress. Have
Speaker 2: you finished researching the story of Letitia Leek or do
Speaker 2: you think that this is a story that you would
Speaker 2: just keep researching because there are still holes in the story,
Speaker 2: aren't there? I mean, there are still more answers that
Speaker 2: you need to find.
Speaker 1: No. No, And every time I give a talk about it,
Speaker 1: somebody comes up and says, oh, did you know and
Speaker 1: my father or my grandfather and I can tell you,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, no, I wish I'd known all
Speaker 1: this beforehand. It's an ongoing thing. I think until I die,
Speaker 1: I'll be collecting information about it.
Speaker 2: Perhaps a second edition. So it's called The accidental airess.
Speaker 2: Where can people buy the book Carol online?
Speaker 1: From the Adelaide booksellers, which of course are in Adelaide,
Speaker 1: but they to be very efficient and quick. That's the
Speaker 1: main outlet that we have at the moment.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, and we'll pop a link in the show notes
Speaker 2: to this episode so that people can easily order a
Speaker 2: copy online. Well, thank you so much for sharing that story.
Speaker 2: It's just full of intrigue, isn't it? Full of scandal
Speaker 2: and intrigue, So thank you so much for sharing it
Speaker 2: with us today, Carol.
Speaker 1: It's absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jan, Thank you, thanks for listening. This has
Speaker 2: been In Black and White, a podcast about some of
Speaker 2: Australia's forgotten characters, written and hosted by me Jen Kelly,
Speaker 2: edited by Nina Young and produced by John ty Burton.
Speaker 2: You can find all the stories and photos associated with
Speaker 2: our episodes at Haroldsun dot com dot au slash ib aw.
Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd love you to leave
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