LEATHERHEAD, an urban district in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 18 m. S.S.W. of London, on the London, Brighton & South Coast and the London & South-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 4694. It lies at the foot of the North Downs in the pleasant valley of the river Mole. The church of St Mary and St Nicholas dates from the 14th century. St John’s Foundation School, opened in London in 1852, is devoted to the education of sons of poor clergymen. Leatherhead has brick-making and brewing industries, and the district is largely residential.
LEATHES, STANLEY (1830-1900), English divine and Orientalist, was born at Ellesborough, Bucks, on the 21st of March 1830, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1852, M.A. 1853. In 1853 he was the first Tyrwhitt’s Hebrew scholar. He was ordained priest in 1857, and after serving several curacies was appointed professor of Hebrew at King’s College, London, in 1863. In 1868-1870 he was Boyle lecturer (The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ), in 1873 Hulsean lecturer (The Gospel its Own Witness), in 1874 Bampton Lecturer (The Religion of the Christ) and from 1876 to 1880 Warburtonian lecturer. He was a member of the Old Testament revision committee from 1870 to 1885. In 1876 he was elected prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral, and he was rector of Cliffe-at-Hoo near Gravesend (1880-1889) and of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire (1889-1900). The university of Edinburgh gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1878, and his own college made him an honorary fellow in 1885. Besides the lectures noted he published Studies in Genesis (1880), The Foundations of Morality (1882) and some volumes of sermons. He died in May 1900.
His son, Stanley Mordaunt Leathes (b. 1861), became a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and lecturer on history, and was one of the editors of the Cambridge Modern History; he was secretary to the Civil Service Commission from 1903 to 1907, when he was appointed a Civil Service Commissioner.
LEAVEN (in Mid. Eng. levain, adapted from Fr. levain, in same sense, from Lat. levamen, which is only found in the sense of alleviation, comfort, levare, to lift up), a substance which produces fermentation, particularly in the making of bread, properly a portion of already fermented dough added to other dough for this purpose (see [Bread]). The word is used figuratively of any element, influence or agency which effects a subtle or secret change. These figurative usages are mainly due to the comparison of the kingdom of Heaven to leaven in Matt. xiii. 33, and to the warning against the leaven of the Pharisees in Matt. xvi. 6. In the first example the word is used of a good influence, but the more usual significance is that of an evil agency. There was among the Hebrews an association of the idea of fermentation and corruption, which may have been one source of the prohibition of the use of leavened bread in sacrificial offerings. For the usage of unleavened bread at the feasts of the Passover and of Massôth, and the connexion of the two, see [Passover].
LEAVENWORTH, a city and the county-seat of Leavenworth county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Missouri river. Pop. (1900) 20,738, of whom 3402 were foreign-born and 2925 were negroes; (1910 census) 19,363. It is one of the most important railway centres west of the Missouri river, being served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago Great Western, the Missouri Pacific, the Union Pacific and the Leavenworth & Topeka railways. The city is laid out regularly in the bottom-lands of the river, and its streets are named after Indian tribes. Rolling hills surround it on three sides. The city has many handsome public buildings, and contains the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Leavenworth being the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. The public institutions include the Kansas State Protective Home (1889) for negroes, an Old Ladies’ Rest (1892), St Vincent’s Orphans’ Asylum (1886, open to all sects) and a Guardian Angels’ Home (1889), for negroes—all private charities aided by the state; also St John’s Hospital (1879), Cushing Hospital (1893) and Leavenworth Hospital (1900), which are training schools for nurses. There is also a branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. In the suburbs there are state and United States penitentiaries. Leavenworth is a trading centre and has various manufactures, the most important being foundry and machine shop and flouring and grist-mill products, and furniture. The city’s factory products increased in value from $3,251,460 in 1900 to $4,151,767 in 1905, or 27.7%. There are valuable coal mines in Leavenworth and the immediate vicinity. About 3 m. N. of the city, on a reservation of about 6000 acres, is Fort Leavenworth, an important United States military post, associated with which are a National Cemetery and Service Schools of the U.S. Army (founded in 1881 as the U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School and in 1901 developed into a General Service and Staff College). In 1907 there were three general divisions of these schools: the Army School of the Line, for officers (not below the grade of captain) of the regular army and for militia officers recommended by the governors of their respective states or territories, offering courses in military art, engineering, law and languages; the Army Signal School, also open to regular and militia officers, and having departments of field signalling, signal engineering, topography and languages; and the Army Staff College, in which the students are the highest graduates from the Army School of the Line, and the courses of instruction are included in the departments of military art, engineering, law, languages and care of troops. The course is one year in each school. At Fort Leavenworth there is a colossal bronze statue of General U. S. Grant erected in 1889. A military prison was established at Fort Leavenworth in 1875; it was used as a civil prison from 1895 to 1906, when it was re-established as a military prison. Its inmates were formerly taught various trades, but owing to the opposition of labour organizations this system was discontinued, and the prisoners are now employed in work on the military reservation.
The fort, from which the city took its name, was built in 1827, in the Indian country, by Colonel Henry Leavenworth (1783-1834) of the 3rd Infantry, for the protection of traders plying between the Missouri river and Santa Fé. The town site was claimed by Missourians from Weston in June 1854, Leavenworth thus being the oldest permanent settlement in Kansas; and during the contest in Kansas between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers, it was known as a pro-slavery town. It was first incorporated by the Territorial legislature in 1855; a new charter was obtained in 1881; and in 1908 the city adopted the commission plan of government. On the 3rd of April 1858 a free-state convention adopted the Leavenworth Constitution here; this constitution, which was as radically anti-slavery as the Lecompton Constitution was pro-slavery, was nominally approved by popular vote in May 1858, and was later submitted to Congress, but never came into effect. During the Civil War Leavenworth enjoyed great prosperity, at the expense of more inland towns, partly owing to the proximity of the fort, which gave it immunity from border raids from Missouri and was an important depôt of supplies and a place for mustering troops into and out of the service. Leavenworth was, in Territorial days and until after 1880, the largest and most thriving commercial city of the state, and rivalled Kansas City, Missouri, which, however, finally got the better of it in the struggle for railway facilities.