Louisa Margaret LEATHART

• General Notes
  • Ruby Skeggs in her '1935 Record of the Heinke Family' writes that Louisa Leathart, also called 'Grandma Heinke', was one of 2 sisters and 12 brothers. Some of her brothers and only siste rEliza emigrated to Australia/NZ and the Leathart descendants still survive , for instance, in the Sydney area. Others of her brothers were sailors and were lost at sea, after which Grandma Heinke never liked tales of the sea being read to her. Both she and her sister sang extremely well.
    
    Louisa married John William Heinke, a successful sub-marine engineer,in 1841 and lived in Mornington Crescent at the other end of the street from Charles Dickens. JohnW was a hugely succesful sub-marine engineer and with his brother Edwin founded Heinke & Co. The couple had to wait 10 years for the birth of their first child Frederick W, and then 2 other children followed, daughter Florence and son Edwin. Her mother-in-law Maria was living with her son JohnW at the time of her death in April 1960 (reported by the Yass Courier).
    
    Widowed at age 53, the 1871 Census shows Louisa living at 9 Percy Road,Hammermith with sons Edwin 13 and Frederick W aged 21. 10 years later, at the 1881 Census, she is living with youngest son, Edwin 23, at 9 Apsley Villas, Hampton Road, Twickenham.
    
    She then became blind, and, at the 1891 Census, her un-married daughter Florence has moved to look after her at 23 Byne Road, Beckenham, Kent. This must have been the period when Louisa started to narrate the Heinke/Leathart family history to her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruby Skeggs. The 1901 Census finds her living at Westbuty on Trym,Glos, aged 83, with daughter Florence 45 untill she died there in 1903.
    
    As the co-author (with Ruby Skeggs) of the Heinke History, the family owes a great debt to Louisa Heinke nee Leathart..
    
    More About Louisa Margaret Leathart:
    Burial: 1903, Kensal Green Cemetry, London beside her husband.
    Musical Talents: Good singer.
    
    More About Louisa Margaret Leathart and John William Heinke:
    Marriage: 20 Jun 1840, St Martins in the Fields, London.
    
    Children of Louisa Margaret Leathart and John William Heinke are:
    Frederick William Heinke, b. May 1851, St Pancras, London57, d. 1883, Tecomabaca,Oxaca,Mexico.
    Florence Louisa Margaret Heinke, b. 1853, London58, d. 1923, Wadhurst,Sussex.
    Edwin Harry Alfred Heinke, b. Dec 1857, London59, d. date unknown, Argentina.