Rider falling from a horse – Coloured lithograph by A. Strassgschwandtner 1860. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Leopold’s story is revealed in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent from May 1849. He was the only surviving son of a wealthy family in St Petersburg, his elder brother having died of cholera in 1848. Leopold was sent to England to escape the disease and to learn English business methods under the supervision of Mr John Chambers, a Sheffield solicitor.
On the morning of Sunday 29th April Leopold went to the Moorhead stables of Messrs Blackwell and West to collect a horse, ordered the previous day. He had boasted that he would show Sheffield people how to ride. He was told he could have Mr West’s own horse if he promised to ride it gently. Although the young man was strongly advised against using spurs, Leopold ignored these remonstrations and set off at a gallop, spurring his horse. According to Russian custom, he had lengthened his stirrups, but his toes could hardly reach them. In his efforts to regain them, he upset the horse with his spurs and by the time they had reached Norfolk Street they were going at a furious rate, and at Mill Street Leopold was thrown to the ground and suffered severe concussion.
Leopold was taken to his lodgings on Glossop Road, and although attended by several doctors, he died aged 17 years on 8 May 1849. The General Cemetery Register records that he was a mercantile clerk, born in Brussels, the son of Herman Lichtenthal, piano manufacturer who lived in St Petersburg with his wife Fanny. Cause of death was given as ‘Contusion of the brain’. How sad for the young man dying so far from home and for his parents who had already lost one son. He was buried in grave Y 47 in the Nonconformist area in a grave purchased by his father.
You can read more about people who came from abroad to live (and die) in Sheffield in the SGCT publication Incomers: a hidden history of global connections in Sheffield General Cemetery.