Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lesley, William Aloysius
LESLEY, WILLIAM ALOYSIUS, D.D. (1641–1704), jesuit, born in Aberdeenshire in 1641, entered the Society of Jesus at Rome at the age of twenty-five, being then a doctor of divinity. For some time he taught philosophy at Perugia, and on 10 Feb. 1673–4 he was appointed superior of the Scots College at Rome, which he governed for nine years. On his petition, in conjunction with his cousin William Lesley, agent at Rome for the Scottish clergy, the festival of St. Margaret, which previously had been celebrated in Scotland only, was inserted in the Roman breviary and missal. During the last ten years of his life Lesley served the mission in Scotland, where he died on 26 March 1704.
He published ‘Vita di S. Margherita, Regina di Scozia, raccolta da diversi autori,’ Rome, 1675, 1691, and 1718, 12mo, pp. 105.
[Catholic Miscellany, ix. 38; De Backer's Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus, ii. 718; Foley's Records, vii. 454; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1343; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 28; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 311; Stothert's Catholic Mission in Scotland, pp. 196–8.]