Friends of Hastings Cemetery

Dr. Leeson left an estate of £10,203-10s-3d.  His last will (dated 21 October 1904) was drawn up when Leeson was living at No.1 Via di Barbano, Florence, Italy.  He declared ‘I desire to add that it is not from any want of affection that I have given my said son [Arthur Gerald Leeson] a less share in the residue of my estate than my said daughter [Nora] as I regard both with equal affection, but because I consider that a man requires less help in the struggle of life than a woman’ (Wills and Admons 1908).

Nora (Eleanor) didn’t marry, but in 1891 Mary married Major Dr John Elsdale Molson. 

A sad footnote:
LEESON, ARTHUR GERALD, Corpl., 102nd Infantry Battn. Canadian Expeditionary Force, only son of the late Arthur Edmund Leeson, M. A., M. D. by his wife, Alice, dau. of James Fraser; b. Blackheath, London, S.E.; 24 Aug. 1870; educ. Merchant Taylors’ School; went to Canada in 1895 where for eight years he was in the North West Mounted Police; subsequently became a Mining Engineer and went to U.S.A.; enlisted in the Canadian Infantry in March, 1916; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, and was killed in action on the Somme, 21 Oct., 1916, during the attack on Regina Trench.  Buried where he fell.  His Captain wrote:  “I have lost a most efficient non-commissioned officer”.

Alice Leeson survived her husband by fifteen years; she lived at 1 Blomfield House, Upper Westbourne Terrace, Notting Hill Gate, London, and died on 6 November 1923 leaving an estate worth £7,537-5s-5d.  She was buried alongside her husband in Hastings Cemetery.

Arthur Leeson was in advance of his time, and his paper published in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science  is his legacy in the annals of the cure or arrest of incipient phthisis [tuberculosis]

See https://www.irlandeses.org/0811walsh.htm for more information.

Walsh, Edward, 'Dr Leeson of Dublin, Buenos Aires and Montevideo' in "Irish Migration Studies in Latin America" 6:3 (November 2008), pp. 187-192. Available online  (www.irlandeses.org/imsla0811.htm), accessed 20 August 2021.