Leslie Probyn

Sir Leslie Probyn KCMG (23 February 1862 – 17 December 1938)[1] was an administrator for the British Empire.

Sir

Leslie Probyn
Troops parade past Leslie Probyn during his governorship of Sierra Leone
Governor of Sierra Leone
In office
3 October 1904 – 1910
MonarchEdward VII
Preceded byCharles King-Harman
Succeeded byEdward Mereweather
Governor of Jamaica
In office
11 June 1918 – 1924
MonarchGeorge V
Preceded byRobert Johnstone
Succeeded byHerbert Bryan
Personal details
Born(1862-02-23)23 February 1862
Died17 December 1938(1938-12-17) (aged 76)
Folkestone, Kent
NationalityBritish
Spouse(s)Emily Davies
ChildrenDorothy Emily Probyn Cokayne (1889-1963)
Sybil Rose Probyn Hayne (b. 1888)

Career

Probyn was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1884.[2]

He began his career as a British colonial administrator in the Caribbean. From 1893 to 1896, he served as Attorney-General of British Honduras. In 1896, he was appointed Attorney General of Grenada.[3] He was then moved to west Africa, serving successively as Secretary and Acting High Commissioner of Southern Nigeria (1901-1904) and governor of Sierra Leone (1904-1910).

Probyn then returned to the Caribbean, where he was first Governor of Barbados (1911-1918) and then of Jamaica (1918-1924). During his tenure as governor of Jamaica, women were granted suffrage. However, Probyn mandated that this be subject to "safe and rigid qualifications", meaning that the majority of black Jamaican women were still effectively denied the right to vote.[4]

On his retirement from the colonial service he returned to England, where he served as Chairman of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Folkestone.[5]

Personal life

Probyn was one of four children of Edmund Probyn, JP and DL, and Charlotte Seymour Jones. He was educated at Charterhouse School. He was made a KCMG in 1909.[6] He married Emily Davies (d. 1926), with whom he had two daughters, Sybil Rose (b. 1888) and Dorothy Emily (1889-1963).[7] Through his sister, Evelyn, he was uncle of the seventh earl of Lisburne.

Probyn was also the author of a number of treatises on legal practice, and was a regular contributor to the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century and After.

Select bibliography
  • Leslie Probyn, Statutory form of a bill of sale, with forms of, and rules for drawing same; also a digest of all the reported cases (London, 1888)
  • Leslie Probyn, The jurisdiction and practice of the Mayor's court together with appendices of forms, rules and statutes specially relating to the court. (London, 1896)

References
  1. https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=willperf&op=SHOW&surname=Proby%2C+Joh
  2. Who's Who 1935. 1935. p. 2725. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  3. "Obituaries". The Glasgow Herald. 20 December 1938. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  4. James, Winston (2000). A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay's Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion. Verso. p. 17. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  5. Who's Who 1935. 1935. p. 2725. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  6. "Obituaries". The Glasgow Herald. 20 December 1938. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  7. Who's Who 1935. 1935. p. 2725. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
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