Frida Leakey

First wife of Louis Leakey

Louis Leakey

(m. 1928; div. 1936)

Children

Priscilla Muthoni Leakey
Colin Leakey

Henrietta Wilfrida "Frida" Leakey (née Avern; 1902 – 19 August 1993), also known as H. Wilfrida Leakey, was a British teacher who discovered a gorge that was named FLK or "Frida Leakey Korongo". The gorge was the site of ancient stone tools and important human fossil discoveries. Leakey was the first wife of paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey. She became a leader in the Women's Institute and a County Councillor.

Life

She was born in 1902 and her father, Henry Averne, sold cork in Reigate in Surrey. She attended the Sorbonne before going on to Newnham College in Cambridge. She then went to Kent where she worked teaching French at Benenden School.^[1]

She married Louis Leakey and their first child was a daughter Priscilla Muthoni Leakey.^[1]

She learnt how to construct archaeological illustrations and it is her illustrations that are included in "The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony"^[2] published by her husband in 1931. The book describes excavations in 1926–7 and 1928–9.^[3]

She discovered a gorge off Olduvai gorge that was named "FLK" for "Frida Leakey Korongo".^[1] This gorge would be an outstanding source of human fossils.^[2]

Her husband's behaviour was criticised by family and friends when he left her just after the birth of their son Colin in December 1933. In 1936, she divorced him for his infidelity and he quickly married Mary Leakey.^[4] Frida, her son, and her daughter went to live in Cambridge. Colin did not see his father again until he was 19.^[5]

During the war she organised billeting at Girton College. She was elected chair of the Women's Institute in Cambridgeshire and she was elected as an independent county councillor for Cambridgeshire.^[1]

Death and legacy

She died in 1993 leaving two children.^[1] The gorge that she had discovered, Frida Leakey Korongo (and was named for her) was found to be the location of ancient hominids (homo erectus) living 1.5 million years ago. They were using stone tools and their diet included the hippopotamus. Excavations were still in progress in 2019.^[6]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Leakey, Henrietta Wilfrida (1902–1993)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/52219. Retrieved 23 September 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ ^a ^b "Frida Avern Leakey | TrowelBlazers". 20 December 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
^ Leakey, L. S. B. (20 June 2013). The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-61547-2.
^ "Leakey [née Nicol], Mary Douglas (1913–1996), archaeologist and palaeoanthropologist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56023. Retrieved 23 September 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ Morell, Virginia (2011). Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings. p. 244.
^ "The CENIEH continues collaborating on the reconstruction of the landscape of Olduvai Gorge | CENIEH". www.cenieh.es. Retrieved 23 September 2020.

Leakey family tree

James Leakey
(1775–1865)^[i]

Eliza Hubbard Woolmer
(1793–1855)^[ii]

James Shirley Leakey
(1824–1871) ^{[citation needed]}

Caroline Woolmer Leakey
(1827–1881)^[ii]

9 others^[ii]

Rev. Arundell Leakey
(1853–1924)

Rev. Harry Leakey
(1868–1940)

Elizabeth Laing
(1873–1925)^[iii]^[iv]

Arundell Gray Arundell Leakey
(1885–1954)^[iii]^[iv]

5 others

Henrietta Wilfrida Avern
(1902–1993)

Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey^[iv]
(1903–1972)

Mary Douglas Nicol
(1913–1996)

3 others

Nigel Gray Leakey
(1913–1941)^[iii]^[iv]

Robert Dove Leakey
(1914–2013)

Maj. Gen. Arundell Rea Leakey
(1915–1999)

Agnes Florence Leakey
(1917–2006)^[iv]

Colin Louis Avern Leakey
(1933–2018)

Meave Epps
(b. 1942)

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey
(1944–2022)

Margaret Cropper

Jonathan Harry Erskine Leakey
(1940–2021)

Philip Leakey
(b. 1949)

Lt. Gen. Arundell David Leakey
(b. 1952)

Louise Leakey
(b. 1972)

Emmanuel,
Prince de Mérode
(b. 1970)

Notes:

^ O'Donoghue, F. M.; Remington, V. (revised) (2004). "Leakey, James (1775–1865), miniature painter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16244. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ ^a ^b ^c "Eliza Hubbard Woolmer, wife of James Leakey". Artsandculture.google.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 6 April 2022. Elizabeth Hubbard Woolmer was born on 20 December 1793. ... On 28 August 1815 she married the artist James Leakey (1775-1865) at St. Sidwell's Church, Exeter (2). They had eleven children. ... Caroline Woolmer Leakey (1827-1881)
^ ^a ^b ^c "Serjeant Nigel Gray Leakey | War Casualty Details". cwgc.org. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Archived from the original on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022. NIGEL GRAY LEAKEY ... Died 19 May 1941 Age 28 years old ... Son of Arundell Gray A. and Elizabeth Leakey, of Kiganjo, Kenya.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Lean, Mary (26 January 2007). "Agnes Hofmeyr, Worker for reconciliation in Africa". The Independent. Archived from the original on 22 September 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2022. Agnes Leakey, worker for reconciliation: born Limuru, Kenya 8 May 1917; married 1946 Bremer Hofmeyr (died 1993; one son, and one son deceased); died Johannesburg 1 December 2006. ... Agnes Leakey was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1917, the youngest child of Gray Leakey, cousin of the anthropologist Louis Leakey, and his first wife, Elizabeth. ... in 1926, when Elizabeth died ... She married a South African colleague, Bremer Hofmeyr, in 1946. ... in ... 1954 ... Mau Mau fighters ... attacked her father's farm, killed her stepmother and abducted her father. ... [he was] buried alive, in a shallow grave on Mount Kenya. ... she lost her eldest brother, Nigel Leakey, in 1941 at Colito, where he won the Victoria Cross. Three years after Bremer's death, in 1993, their elder son, Murray, was killed in a car accident in Johannesburg.