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John Leslie-Melville, 12th Earl of Leven

Scottish peer

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ75286111 ↗
Source-derived summary

John David Leslie-Melville, 12th Earl of Leven (5 April 1886 – 11 June 1913) (known as Lord Balgonie from 1889 to 1906) was a Scottish soldier and banker who served as a Scottish representative peer.

Early life

Leslie-Melville was born on 5 April 1886. He was the eldest son of Ronald Leslie-Melville, 11th Earl of Leven and the former Emma Selina Portman (1863–1941). His siblings were Hon. Archibald Alexander Leslie-Melville, Capt. Hon. David William Leslie-Melville, Lt.-Col. Hon. Ian Leslie-Melville, and Lady Constance Betty Leslie-Melville. His father was a very wealthy landowner and resided at Holyrood Palace when he was Lord High Commissioner of Scotland.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Leslie-Melville, 12th Earl of Leven” as scottish peer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1886, 1913, 1889, 1906—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1886-04-05. The account is most persuasive where John, Leslie-Melville and 12th can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as scottish peer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q75286111. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1886, 1913, 1889 and 1906.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Leslie-Melville, 12th Earl of Leven” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.