Robert Eadon Leader (2 January 1839 – 18 April 1922) was a journalist, Liberal activist, and historian. He published many books on the history of the Sheffield area.

Robert Eadon Leader
Born2 January 1839
DiedApril 18, 1922(1922-04-18) (aged 83)
Alma materNew College London
Occupation(s)journalist
liberal activist
historian
Spouse
Emily Sarah Pye-Smith
(m. 1864)
FatherRobert Leader

He was the son of Robert Leader, Alderman and Town Trustee, and proprietor of the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent newspaper.[1] Educated at New College London he joined his elder brother, John Daniel Leader, and father at the Sheffield Independent.[2] In 1864 he married his second cousin Emily Sarah Pye-Smith (both were great-grandchildren of John Pye-Smith).[1]

He was one of the founders of the Sheffield Junior Liberal Association, and of the Sheffield Parliamentary Debating Society.[3] He unsuccessfully ran for parliament twice. In 1892 he ran as the Liberal Party candidate for the Sheffield Ecclesall constituency, and in 1895 he ran in the Bassetlaw constituency.[1] He served as president of the Hunter Archaeological Society and the Provincial Newspaper Society.

Leader House, a Grade II listed Georgian townhouse takes its name from the Leader family, their home from the early C19.[4]

List of publications

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  • Reminiscences of Old Sheffield; its Streets and its People (1875)
  • Life and Letters of John Arthur Roebuck Q.C., M.P. (1897)
  • Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century (1901)
  • History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (1905–6)

References

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  1. ^ a b c Addy, Sidney Oldall (1924). "Robert Eadon Leader". Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society. 2. Sheffield: Hunter Archaeological Society: 213.
  2. ^ Odom, William (1926). "Leader, Robert Eadon, B.A.". Hallamshire Worthies. Sheffield: Northend. pp. 17–18.
  3. ^ "Personnel of the Society, Past and Present". Provincial Newspaper Society, 1836-1886. Provincial Newspaper Society. 1886. p. 96.
  4. ^ "LEADER HOUSE AND ADJOINING BOUNDARY WALL, Sheffield - 1247423 | Historic England". Historic England. 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
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