John Farley Leith

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix =

| name = John Farley Leith

| honorific-suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|QC|MP}}

| image = File:John Farley Leith, Vanity Fair, 1879-06-21.jpg

| alt = An 1879 caricature of John Farley Leith in Vanity Fair magazine

| caption = 1879 caricature of John Farley Leith in Vanity Fair

| office = Member of Parliament
for Aberdeen

| parliament =

| majority =

| term_start = 29 June 1872

| term_end = 3 April 1880

| predecessor = William Henry Sykes

| alongside =

| successor = John Webster

| birth_name =

| birth_date = 5 May 1808

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{death date and given age|df=yes|1887|04|04|78}}

| death_place =

| restingplace =

| birthname =

| nationality = British

| party = Liberal

| otherparty =

| children =

| parents =

| spouse =

| education = University of Aberdeen

| native_name =

}}

John Farley Leith, QC (5 May 1808 – 4 April 1887){{Rayment-hc|a|1|date=January 2018}} was a British lawyer and Liberal politician.

Life

He was the eldest son of James Urquhart Murray Leith, of Barrach, Aberdeenshire, killed in 1814 at the Battle of Orthez with the 68th Regiment. He was educated at Marischal College and Aberdeen University. He studied law at the Middle Temple and was called to the bar in 1830.{{cite Men-at-the-Bar|wstitle=Leith, John Farley}}{{cite book |title=Oliver & Boyd's new Edinburgh almanac and national repository |date=1874 |publisher=Oliver & Boyd |page=573 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LScOAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA573 |language=en}}

Leith practised as a barrister in the Calcutta High Court from 1832 to 1846 and was then

Professor of Law at the East India Company's Haileybury College from 1853 to 1857. He was made QC in 1872 and a bencher in 1874.{{cite book|title=Dictionary of Indian Biography|page=249}}

He was elected MP for Aberdeen at a by-election in 1872 but stood down at the 1880 general election.{{cite book|editor1-last=Craig|editor1-first=F. W. S.|editor-link=F. W. S. Craig|title=British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885|date=1977|publisher=Macmillan Press|location=London|isbn=978-1-349-02349-3|edition=1st}}

Leith died in 1887.

Family

In 1832 Leith married Alicia Anne, the daughter of Samuel Tomkins (the elder) of London, a banker, with whom he had issue. Their daughter Mary Anne married Sir William Miller, 1st Baronet.{{Who's Who|title=Miller, Sir John Alexander|id=U200392|access-date=4 December 2021}} Their sons included Edward Tyrrell Leith, law professor at the University of Bombay, and the barrister William Gordon Ernest Leith.{{cite book |title=The Law Times |date=1886 |publisher=Office of The Law Times |page=480 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rt45AQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA480 |language=en}}