William Leighton Leitch

Leitch soon developed a strong inclination for art, and used to practise drawing at night with David Macnee, afterwards president of the Scottish Academy.

After a good general education, he found employment in a lawyer's office, then as a weaver, then as an apprentice to a Mr. Harbut, house-painter and decorator.

After exhibiting two drawings at the Society of British Artists in 1832, he travelled to the continent in 1833, passing through the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland to Italy.

After an absence of four years, during which Leitch supported himself mainly by teaching, and had visited the principal cities of Italy, and made numerous sketches there and in Sicily, he returned to London in July 1837.

Robert Walsh's "Constantinople and the Turkish empire" (1838); George Newenham Wright's "The Rhine, Italy and Greece" (1840), and "Shores and islands of the Mediterranean" (1841), William Brockedon's "Italy" (1843), Sir T. D. Lauder's "Memorial of the royal progress in Scotland" (1843), and John Parker Lawson's "Scotland delineated" (1847–54).

The sketches in his possession at his death, with a very few finished drawings and oil pictures, were sold at Christie's in March 1884, and brought upwards of 9,000 pounds.