LESLE, JOHANN THEODORE [SSNE 8332]

Surname

LESLE, LESLIE

First name

JOHANN THEODORE

Text source

Johann Theodor Lesle [or Leslie] (ca. 1660-1710) was the son of John Walter Leslie [SSNE 6602], Johann Theodor had enrolled at the Viadrina three months before his father's death. Having a penchant for mathematics and architecture, he showed talent for becoming an „engineer“ which, at that time, was a term used for master builders trained in the art of fortress construction. Usually civil servants and members of the military, their range of duties was broad, covering both military and civil buildings, and including river regulation, landscape management, and sometimes the management of state manufactories. Completing his studies, he passed the final exams in 1671. The same year, „Johann Theodorus Leßle“, engineer of the Elector of Brandenburg, married Anna Maria Bewert (1670-1731), who, ten months after the wedding, gave birth to a daughter Anna Dorothea. A second daughter Helena Sybilla followed in March 1701 and, in July 1703, a son Johann Wolfgang.

From 1697 to 1701, Johann Theodor Lesle acted as fortress engineer in Pomerania and member of the teaching staff of the "Knight‘s Academy", a training centre for young noblemen wishing to enter military service, established at Kolberg in 1653 by the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm. The students were to receive a training which included exercises in drill, riding, fencing, dancing and lectures on warfare, mathematics and the French language. Besides being one of the few teachers of this educational institution whose names have been handed down, Johann Theodor Lesle also had a command of other disciplines as is documented by a manuscript („Theatrum artis scribendi“), which was presented to Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg, on January 1, 1699. Now kept in the Berlin State Library, it contains 275 artful examples of script designs on paper or parchment. In 1701, the year of the coronation of Elector Friedrich III as King Friedrich I of Brandenburg-Prussia, the Knights' Academy in Kolberg was dissolved. Among the staff of its successor, the short-lived Knights' Academy established in Berlin in 1705, no teacher appears by the name of Johann Theodor Lesle. In March 1710, he died at Berlin and was buried, there.

Twenty years after her husband, the widow Anna Maria Lesle née Bewert died in Berlin on 20 March 1731, nearly two years after her daughter Anna Dorothea had married Paul de Merieu (1697-1730), Assessor at the French Courts in Berlin, on 17 May 1729. As Huguenots, his parents, Antoine de Merieu, Lord of Perigneux (about 80 kilometers southwest of Lyon), and his wife Marie de la Roulière, Countess of Rostaing, had been driven from their homeland France and, like many of their French compatriots of the Reformed faith, had found refuge in Brandenburg, after all. Noteworthy is the change of the bride‘s family name from Lesle to Leslie in the marriage register of the Berlin Cathedral, the birth register of which, nine months later, documents the birth and baptism of the couple‘s son Friedrich Wilhelm de Merieu. Only nine months later, the child‘s father, Paul de Merieu, died at the age of 33. The widow, Anna Dorothea de Merieu née Leslie, followed him, when she died in Berlin on 4 March 1739.

Probably, the deceased‘s orphaned nine-year-old son Friedrich Wilhelm, was taken care of by her unmarried sister Helena Sybilla Leslie, now. Death, however, didn‘t wait for him, too long. Only nine years after his mother, the 18-year-old grammar schoolboy Friedrich Wilhelm de Merieu died in Berlin on 1 September 1748. His aunt Helena Sybilla Leslie stayed alive for almost ten more years after. In her 58th year, she died in Berlin on December 3, 1758. As to her younger brother Johannes Wolfgang, he, apparently, as a student went to Vienna, Austria, where he got enrolled

("Leslie Joannes Wolfgangus Berolinensis gramm.") at the university on 30 November 1723. Later, he seems to have returned to Berlin where he is mentioned in the spring of 1764, for the last time when the Berlin Superior Court of Justice reported him missing in a newspaper ad.

 

Sources: Ancestry.de. 2018. Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971 (Brandenburg Berlin Tote 1703-1819, Brandenburg Berlin Taufen 1616-1700, 1701-1743; Brandenburg Berlin Taufen und Heiraten 1616-1875); Crousaz, Adolf Friedrich Johannes von. 1857. Geschichte des Königlich Preussischen Kadetten-Corps: nach seiner Entstehung, seinem Entwickelungsgange und seinen Resultaten: mit allerhöchster Genehmigung und im Auftrage des Kadetten-Corps aus den urkundlichen Quellen geschöpft und systematisch bearb. H. Schindler, p. 29 f.; Erman, Jean Pierre. 1799. Mémoires Pour Servir À L’Histoire Des Réfugiés François Dans Les États Du Roi Tableau Des Militaires Et Des Nobles Appartenans Aux Colonies Françoises Des Etats Du Roi Depuis L’Époque Du Refuge. 9. Berlin, p. 198; Mevius, Dietrich. 2009. „Von Conductoren, Kriegsbaumeistern und Landvermessern: Das Ingenieurwesen in der brandenburgisch-preußischen Armee (bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts)“. Amtsblatt Löcknitz-Penkun, April, 14–16; Mühlberger, Kurt, Hrsg. 2011. Die Matrikel der Universität Wien. Bd. 7 (1715/16-1745/46). Wien und München, p. 85; Oelrichs, Carl Conrad. 1765. Entwurf einer Bibliothek zur Geschichte der Gelahrtheit in Pommern. Alten-Stettin und Leipzig, S. 28; Schipke, Renate. 2015. „Eine anmutig zarte Welt aus Papier. Scherenschnitte in den Sammlungen der Berliner Staatsbibliothek“. In Arbeitskreis Bild Druck Papier Tagungsband Bergamo 2014 hrsg. von Konrad Vanja et al., 169–80. Münster und New York, p. 56; Bunz, Rainer. 2018. Von Leslie – Schottischer Adel in Deutschland und Österreich. Norderstedt: BoD – Book on Demand, pp. 185-190.

This article was written on 24 June 2020 by Rainer Bunz.

Service record

BRANDENBURG, EAST PRUSSIA,

Arrived 1670-01-01

Departed 1710-03-01

Capacity FORTRESS ENGINEER, purpose MILITARY