View source for Biography:Walter Leaf

{{Short description|English banker and classical scholar (1852–1927)}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| name           = Walter Leaf
| image          = Walter Leaf by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron.jpg
| caption      = {{centre| '''Walter Leaf'''}}{{right| ''Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, 1891''}}
| birth_date     = 26 November 1852
| death_date    = 8 March 1927
| death_place    = Torquay, Devon
| occupation   = Banker, classical scholar, psychical researcher
| birth_place    =Upper Norwood (Croydon)
| parents      = Charles John Leaf (1826–1897)<br>Isabella Ellen Leaf, née Tyas (1830–1902)
}}

Sir '''Walter Leaf''' (26 November 1852, Upper Norwood<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=nuApvJ09df%2FUSqLRjJS3Qw&scan=1|title=Index entry|accessdate=10 July 2017|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}</ref> – 8 March 1927, Torquay) was an English banker, [[Social:Classics|classical scholar]] and [[Unsolved:Parapsychology|psychical researcher]]. He published a benchmark edition of Homer's [[Religion:Iliad|Iliad]] and was a director of Westminster Bank for many years, eventually becoming its chairman. He was a co-founder and later president of the International Chamber of Commerce, and served as president of the Institute of Bankers, the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association. He married Charlotte Symonds, daughter of John Addington Symonds. He was a Cambridge Apostle.

==Academic career==
Walter Leaf was born on 26 November 1852.   In 1865 he won a scholarship to [[Organization:Winchester College|Winchester College]].   However, his parents became concerned that living conditions at Winchester would be unacceptable so they rented a house at Harrow on the edge of London from where their boy enrolled in April 1866 at Harrow School as a day pupil.<ref name=WLperRBS>{{cite web |url= http://heritagearchives.rbs.com/people/list/walter-leaf.html |title=Walter Leaf |work=RBS Heritage Hub |publisher=Royal Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh |accessdate=10 July 2017}}</ref> From Harrow he progressed to Trinity College, Cambridge.<ref>{{acad|id=LF869W|name=Leaf, Walter}}</ref> He won a scholarship to Trinity in 1870, became senior classic in 1874 and was elected to a fellowship the following year.<ref name=CUP>{{cite web | url=http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item5629875/ | title=Homer, The Iliad |year=2010 | publisher=Cambridge University Press| accessdate=17 March 2012}}</ref> He was concerned with uncovering the physical reality of the classical world, in contrast to the Cambridge Ritualists,<ref name=CUP /> and was the foremost [[Biography:Homer|Homer]] scholar of his generation.<ref name=Pleiad>{{cite web | url=http://www.rbs.com/rbs-history-100/1890-1920/a-byzantine-pleiad--poems-translated-from-greek-by-walter-leaf--.html | title=A Byzantine Pleiad, poems translated from Greek by Walter Leaf, 1920 | publisher=Royal Bank of Scotland |year=2012 | accessdate=17 March 2012}}</ref> His edition of the [[Religion:Iliad|Iliad]] was published in two volumes (1886–1888)<ref name=CUP /> and was regarded for several decades as the best English edition of Homer's epic poem.<ref name=CUP /> Leaf also translated works from Russian and Persian, and was fluent in several European languages, including French, Italian and German.<ref name=Pleiad /> He was president of the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association. He also took interest in ancient [[Earth:Geography|geography]].<ref>H, D. G. (1927). ''Obituary: Dr. Walter Leaf''. ''[[Earth:The Geographical Journal|The Geographical Journal]]'' 69 (6): 601.</ref>

==Banking==
In 1877 he entered the family textile firm, becoming in 1888 chairman of Leaf & Company Ltd. In 1892 Leaf & Co merged with Pawson & Co to become Pawsons and Leafs Limited. Walter became a director of what would become Westminster Bank in 1891, and its chairman from 1918 until his death.<ref name=Pleiad /> From 1919 to 1921 he was president of the Institute of Bankers. He worked tirelessly for the International Chamber of Commerce, of which he was a co-founder in 1919 and elected president in 1925.<ref name=Pleiad />

==Psychical research==

Leaf was a member of the [[Organization:Society for Psychical Research|Society for Psychical Research]]. He translated [[Biography:Vsevolod Solovyov|Vsevolod Solovyov]]'s ''A Modern Priestess of Isis'' (1895).<ref>Owen, Alex. (2004). ''The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern''. University of Chicago Press. p. 37. {{ISBN|978-0-226-64204-8}}</ref>

Leaf studied the medium Leonora Piper. He did not believe that the personality of a person could survive death but came to the conclusion that "memories of the dead survive and are under special conditions accessible to us."<ref name="Tanner">[[Biography:Amy Tanner|Tanner, Amy]]. (1910). ''Studies in Spiritism''. Appleton. p. 96</ref> This was in opposition to sceptics such as psychologist [[Biography:G. Stanley Hall|G. Stanley Hall]] who described her mediumship as a case of [[Medicine:Dissociative identity disorder|secondary personality]].<ref name="Tanner"/>

==Death==
It was his doctor who early in 1927 recommended him to visit Torquay, in the south-west of England, for the sake of his health.   After a few weeks he died there, however.   His funeral ceremony was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.<ref name=WLperRBS/>

==Publications==

*''The Iliad of Homer: Done into English Prose'' (1892, 1911) [with [[Biography:Andrew Lang|Andrew Lang]] and Ernest Myers]
*''A Companion to the Iliad for English Readers'' (1892)
*''A Modern Priestess of Isis'' (1895) [with [[Biography:Vsevolod Solovyov|Vsevolod Solovyov]]]
*''Versions from Hafiz, an essay in Persian metre'' (Alexander Moring, Ltd.) (1898)
*''Troy: A Study in Homeric Geography'' (1912)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Troy: A Study in Homeric Geography'' by Walter Leaf|journal=The Athenaeum |issue=4432|date=October 12, 1912|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=px9Y0BOY-QMC&pg=PA405|page=405}}</ref>
*''Homer and History'' (1915)
*''Quatrains From the Greek'' (1919)
*''Little Poems From the Greek'' (1922)
*''Strabo on the Troad'' (1923)
*''Banking'' (1927)
*''Walter Leaf, 1852–1927: Some Chapters of Autobiography'' (1932) [with Charlotte Mary Symonds Leaf]

==References==
{{Reflist |35em}}
{{refbegin}}
*T.E. Gregory, ''The Westminster Bank through a Century'', 2 vols, 1936 [with chapter on Leaf] 
{{refend}}

==External links==
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Leaf,+Walter }}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Walter Leaf}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Leaf%2c%20Walter%2c%201852%2d1927 Works by Walter Leaf] at The Online Books Page
* {{PM20|FID=pe/011076}}


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