Captain Leathes Johnston, an 18th-century soldier
Whilst working through some Lord Clive Fund Pension records, the application for a pension from Mrs Maria Johnston, widow of Captain Leathes Johnston, caught my eye because the wording of her husband’s rank and title were not written in the usual manner.
The records of the Committee for the Management and Application of the Military (Lord Clive) Fund discuss the application of Mrs Maria Johnston and describe her as the ‘Widow of Mr Leathes Johnston, who died a Captain the Company’s Service at Bombay’.
Record of the admission of Mrs Maria Johnston to a pension from the Lord Clive Fund, 11 August 1773 - IOR/L/AG/23/2/3, p.68
The wording for Leathes Johnston suggested he had not been in the Company’s employ for very long, so I decided to see what had brought him to Bombay at that time.
Leathes Johnston was born in County Antrim in about 1727 and was the only son of William Johnston and Jane Leathes. Jane was the daughter of John Mussenden and his wife Jane, née Leathes, but following the death of her maternal uncle William Leathes, the family name was changed from Mussenden to Leathes to maintain the family title and inheritance.
Together with his cousin John, Leathes Johnston was educated at the Royal School in Armagh before going to live with his uncle Carteret Leathes, MP for Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Carteret secured commissions in the Army for his nephews and Leathes was appointed a Lieutenant in the 14th Regiment of Foot on 31 October 1751. In April 1755 the Admiralty decided that 50 new companies of marines needed to be raised, and appointed Leathes as one of the new Captains in command of them. The 50 companies were divided into 3 divisions, and Leathes was assigned to the division based at Chatham in Kent.
Appointment of Leathes Johnston as Captain to a Company of Marines - The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Volume 25, April 1755
Alongside his army commission, Leathes also served as a Gentleman Usher Quarterly Waiter to King George II, being appointed on 21 November 1753.
According to the memoirs of his nephew John Johnston ‘Leathes married Mary, the daughter of the late Sir Benjamin Bloomfield’ and the couple had at least six children before Mary died in around 1768/9.
In early 1770 Leathes Johnston applied to the East India Company for a position as a Captain in their Army. On 28 March 1770 his appointment as a Captain was announced by the Court of Directors, and on 30 March 1770 he was sworn in as a Captain of Infantry for Bombay.
Appointment of Leathes Johnston as Captain in the Bombay Army by the East India Company Court of Directors 28 March 1770 - IOR/B/85 p.494
Prior to departing for Bombay, Leathes was married for a second time on 10 May 1770 to Miss Maria Branch at St Martin in the Fields, London.
It seems that Leathes departed for Bombay without his wife, as on 5 September 1770 Maria petitioned the Company to be permitted to travel to Bombay and join her husband, which was granted (although the Company mistakenly records her name as Mrs Ann Johnston). The couple had a son Thomas who was baptised in Darenth, Kent, in October 1770, and the birth of Leathes’ youngest son may well have been the reason Maria could not travel to Bombay with her husband and had to delay her journey until later in 1770.
Leathes Johnston died in Bombay on 20 May 1771 where as well as serving as a Captain of Infantry he was also Town Major.
His widow Maria, on returning to England in 1773, applied to the East India Company’s Lord Clive Fund for pension which she received until Christmas 1783.
Leathes’ eldest son William followed him into the King’s Army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving in the West Indies; his youngest son Thomas became a priest and was Rector of Broughton in Huntingdonshire.
Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records
Further Reading:
IOR/B/85, 28 & 30 Mar 1770 – East India Company Court Minutes: Appointment of Leathes Johnston as a Captain in the East India Company’s Service.
IOR/B/86, 5 Sep 1770 – East India Company Court Minutes: application of Mrs Maria Johnston to travel to Bombay to be with her husband.
IOR/L/AG/23/2/3, p.68 – Records of the Committee for the Management and Application of the Military (Lord Clive) Fund: admission of Mrs Maria Johnston to a pension on the Lord Clive Fund, 11 Aug 1773.
250.e.1-26 The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Volume 25, April 1755
L.R.252.b.10. The history and antiquities of the County of Suffolk, Volume 2, Alfred Ingo Suckling, London: 1846-8
Historical Collections. Collections and Researches: Vol. XXXII, 1876, via Google Books