Rev Etches was the last Vicar to have a direct relationship to the Lords Leigh; he was a great-great grandson of Chandos, 1st Baron Leigh and related to the previous Revs Dryden, Colvile and Cholmondeley. Rev Colvile had officiated at the marriage of his great-grandparents, Julia Anna Eliza Leigh and Charles Bowyer Adderley.
He was appointed during World War II on the retirement of his predecessor, Rev Longland. He may have been familiar with the area prior to his arrival, because his brother, Benjamin Dixie Adderley Etches, lived at Little Woodcote, to the north-west of Leek Wootton, in the early 1940s.
Before coming to Leek Wootton, Rev Etches was acting as locum tenens at Wribbenhall, near Bewdley and before that he had served at St Andrew’s, Jamaica (1936-39).
He and his wife, Dorothy, had their second child, Julia, during his incumbency and she was baptised at Leek Wootton in 1944. In 1947, he resigned from his position at Leek Wootton to return to Jamaica.
Rev Etches died in 1990, aged 84, in Folkestone.
Vicars of Leek Wootton
Predecessor: Sidney Ernest Longland | Successor: John Reginald Ryecart