John Bedford Leno - Early Years

Early Years

Although not well educated, John Bedford Leno's mother taught him to read and it is to her he attributed his love of learning. He was sent to preparatory school at the age of eight but was quickly expelled on the grounds of telling a falsehood. He maintained that this was untrue. He suspected that the lie had been fabricated by a few of the better off scholars who found out that he hailed from Bell Yard, and thought it degrading to have to associate with someone of such poor standing.

He was then sent to live with his aunt at Stanwell Moor. She was in charge of the parish poor house, along with her husband, in which they had apartments. He found the workhouse a "queer" place. In a strange twist of fate he next worked as a cleaner and errand boy at the very same school he had been expelled from. At the age of twelve he worked for a firework maker whom he disliked for making false marketing claims and building sub-standard squibs.

He became a rural postboy under the Uxbridge post master, who was also a printer and stationer. John Bedford Leno delivered to the Uxbridge Common, Ickenham, Ruislip and Eastcote areas, walking twenty miles every day, from 6am to dinner time before returning to finish off the day with some print work. It is during his time as postboy that his theatrical interest was aroused; he was often called upon to read out the contents of letters to the villagers, many of whom were illiterate. He found that he had the power to "create smiles and draw forth tears" and found this very satisfying.

This lasted for twelve months before he became so useful in the print office that he was enrolled as a printer's apprentice. Due to his incomplete education he struggled for three years and made little progress. Despite this, he persevered and was given extra instruction after work by the most able, and benevolent, printer in the office called Mr. Kingsbury, who he felt indebted to for the rest of his life.