Leonard Elmhirst
| Leonard Knight Elmhirst | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 6, 1893 Worsbrough, West Riding of Yorkshire, United Kingdom |
| Died | April 16, 1974 (aged 80) |
| Nationality | British subject |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Philanthropist and agronomist |
| Known for |
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| Spouse(s) |
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| Children |
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Leonard Knight Elmhirst (6 June 1893 – 16 April 1974) was a philanthropist and agronomist who worked extensively in India. He was co-founder with his wife Dorothy of the Dartington Hall project in progressive education and rural reconstruction.
Leonard Elmhirst was born into a landed gentry family in Worsbrough (now part of Barnsley, Yorkshire), where the family seat is Houndhill. He was the second of nine siblings (eight boys and one girl). His elder brother, William, was killed on the Somme and the third son, Christopher, was killed at Gallipoli, both during World War I. The fourth son, Thomas became Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst (KBE, CB, AFC, DL, RAF).
In 1912 Leonard Elmhirst went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to study history and theology, intending to follow his father into the Church. In 1914, he was deemed unfit for military service and volunteered for overseas service in the YMCA. His experience of the problems of rural India was to fundamentally change the direction of his career. After one year's service in the army he was demobilised in 1919 and entered Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to study agriculture. Arriving almost penniless, he successfully completed a four-year degree course in two years. In 1920 he was elected president of Cornell's Cosmopolitan Club, which was mostly for foreign students, and found that it had large debts and depended on the philanthropy of its alumni and others. Money-raising activities brought him in contact with Dorothy Straight, who was to become his wife.
In America he also met the 1913 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Rabindranath Tagore, and in November 1921 returned to India as Tagore's secretary. In 1922, in the village of Surul (now Sriniketan) adjacent to Santiniketan, West Bengal, he set up for Tagore an Institute of Rural Reconstruction. Between 1923 and 1925, Leonard travelled twice around the globe, lecturing and supporting Rabindranath Tagore's missions to Europe, Asia and South America.
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