Sir Egerton Leigh, 2nd Baronet

The Revd Sir Egerton Leigh, 2nd Baronet (25 March 1762 – 27 April 1818), an Anglo-American aristocrat, was founding minister of Rugby Baptist Church, Warwickshire.

[1] Born in 1762, the eldest surviving son of Egerton Leigh, a prominent South Carolina colonial official and Loyalist (created a baronet in 1773) and Martha Brymer (died 1801), daughter of Captain Francis Brymer, muster-master of the American Revolutionary Army by his wife Martha Laurens, he was a great-nephew (matrilineally) of Continental Congress president Henry Laurens, and (patrilineally) of Archdeacon Dr Egerton Leigh, seated at West Hall, High Legh, Cheshire.

[2] Educated at Westminster School, Leigh was commissioned into the 22nd Regiment of Foot serving with the British Army in the American Revolutionary War until 1781.

[4] Establishing himself as the Preaching Baronet throughout the 1790s, Leigh founded Rugby Baptist Church in 1803, serving as Pastor until 1811.

[5] In October 1812, Leigh arrived at New York City but being judged as an enemy alien was granted parole at Lexington, Virginia, in 1813 and was returned to England without seeing his youngest brother, Thomas Egerton Leigh (born 1776), a plantation owner of Georgetown County, South Carolina, later of Tyrrell County, North Carolina.