Percival Leigh

Percival Leigh was a 19th-century English satirist and comic writer, born in Haddington, Scotland, on November 3, 1813. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and qualified in medicine, but literature soon pulled him in a different direction.

With his friend John Leech, he published a string of comic books in 1840 and 1841, including The Comic Latin Grammar and The Comic English Grammar. Their success helped bring both men into the founding circle of Punch, where Leigh became one of the magazine's original contributors and later served as deputy editor under Mark Lemon.

Leigh worked with artists including Leech and Richard Doyle, and his best-known book, Ye Manners and Customs of Ye Englyshe, became popular for its mock-old-fashioned style and sly commentary on Victorian life. He continued contributing to Punch for decades and was remembered as the last surviving member of its early team when he died at Oak Cottage, Hammersmith, on October 24, 1889.