Leakey was born in
Kiganjo, Kenya to English parents. Leakey's mother Elizabeth died in 1926. His father, Arundell Gray Leakey, was the son of Reverend John Arundell Leakey, clergyman in England. He was a cousin of archaeologists
Louis Leakey and
Richard Leakey. Leakey's younger brother
Rea Leakey served in the
Royal Tank Regiment in the Second World War, and later became a
major general. His sister Agnes Leakey (later Agnes Hofmeyr) worked for black and white reconciliation in Kenya. After serving in the
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in the early 1900s, Leakey's father became a farmer at Nyeri Station, west of
Mount Kenya in
Central Province, Kenya, about north of Kiganjo and about north of
Nairobi. His father was an honorary
Kikuyu tribesman known as "Morungaru" ("tall and straight"); he was kidnapped and brutally murdered by the
Mau Mau in October 1954, and his second wife Mary was also killed. Leakey was educated in Kenya, and then attended
Bromsgrove School in England. Returning to Kenya, at the outbreak of war in 1939 he joined the
Kenya Regiment and, after training, was attached to the
King's African Rifles. ==Victoria Cross==