A ‘leapling’ is someone who was born on 29 February, the intercalary day of the Gregorian calendar. The word appears to be newly minted; it is unrecognised by the major English dictionaries. Oddly enough I have been able to find only one leapling in my family. With a few thousand people in my tree I’d expect two or three.
Sydney Ernest Plaisted, my 1st cousin four times removed, was born 29 February 1888 in St Kilda, Victoria, the son of Thomas Plaisted (1831 – 1904) and Louisa Lucy (Turner) Plaisted (1844 – 1916). He was the second youngest of their 14 children.
His birth was announced in the Melbourne Weekly Times of 10 March 1888
PLAISTED.—On the 29th February, at Fernleigh, Robe Street, St. Kilda, the wife of Thomas Plaisted of a son
Sydney died as an infant on 2 May 1889 of pulmonary congestion after an illness of 5 days. He was buried in St Kilda cemetery.
Sydney’s father Thomas, brother of my 3rd great grandmother Sally (Plaisted) Hughes (1826 – 1900), was born in Dulwich, south London, in 1831. He emigrated to Australia with his family in 1850.
When he married Lucy Turner in 1861 Thomas was described as ‘Esq., of Her Majesty’s Treasury’. At the time of his death he was recorded as having been an assistant Accountant of the Treasury.
The 1888 rate books for St Kilda list Thomas Plaisted as owner and occupier of a 7-room brick house. From the Sands & McDougall’s Melbourne and Suburban Directory Thomas Plaisted was in Robe Street on the south side, 8 houses from Grey Street. The area has seen considerable redevelopment; I doubt that the house is still standing. (I was interested to note that Thomas Plaisted lived only a few doors from my 3rd great grandfather Philip C Crespigny.)
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