Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rede, Leman Thomas
REDE, LEMAN THOMAS [TERTIUS] (1799–1832), miscellaneous writer, was born in 1799. The father, Leman Thomas Rede, student of the Inner Temple, friend of George Canning's father and a connection of Sir Astley Cooper, was the son of Thomas Rede of Roos Hall, Beccles, Suffolk, but was obliged, owing to the pressure of creditors, to leave England for Hamburg, and died there in December 1810, whereupon his widow, with five children, returned to England. He was a newspaper hack, but also published: 1. ‘Studies of Nature,’ translated from the French of Bernardin de St. Pierre, 1798. 2. ‘Anecdotes and Biography,’ 1799; two editions. 3. ‘Essay on the Laws of England,’ Hamburg, 1802, 3 vols.
The son, Leman Thomas [Tertius] Rede, was, like his father, bred to the law, but inherited the paternal propensity to improvidence, and took to the stage and teaching elocution. He and his brother William Leman Rede [q. v.] were known in London life as ‘the inseparables.’ They were both of them the possessors of great literary talent and varied conversational powers, and both of them were always in want of money. Leman performed ‘divers melodramatic characters in the provinces’ and in London, his last appearance on the stage taking place at Sadler's Wells Theatre a fortnight before his death. He died on 12 Dec. 1832, and was buried in Clerkenwell cemetery, his brother being buried in the same grave in 1847. In 1824 Rede married the widow of William Oxberry [q. v.], the comedian.
His works were: 1. ‘The Modern Speaker.’ 2. ‘Memoir of George Canning,’ 1827, a volume not without merit but very inadequate in research, as ‘two months only were allotted to him’ for its preparation. 3. ‘The Road to the Stage, or the Performer's Preceptor,’ 1827; a useful little manual on acting and the stage at that date. In conjunction with his brother he edited ‘Oxberry's Dramatic Biography,’ which sold well and ran to five volumes.
[Works of L. T. Rede, father and son; Gent. Mag. 1832, ii. 581; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. x. 408.]