Nigel Leakey

Recipient of the Victoria Cross

Nigel Leakey
Sergeant Nigel Leakey c. 1941
Born(1913-01-01)1 January 1913
Kiganjo, British East Africa
Died19 May 1941(1941-05-19) (aged 28)
Kolito, Abyssinia
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
RankSergeant
UnitKing's African Rifles
Battles/warsSecond World War
AwardsVictoria Cross
RelationsRea Leakey (brother)
David Leakey (nephew)
Louis Leakey (cousin)
Richard Leakey (cousin)
Joshua Leakey VC (distant cousin)

Nigel Gray Leakey VC (1 January 1913 – 19 May 1941) was a British soldier and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Early life

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.[1]

After serving in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in the early 1900s,[2] Leakey's father became a farmer at Nyeri Station, west of Mount Kenya in Central Province, Kenya, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Kiganjo and about 100 miles (160 km) 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.[3]

Leakey was educated in Kenya, and then attended Bromsgrove School in England.[4] 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.[5]

Victoria Cross

Leakey was a 28 years old sergeant in the 1/6th Battalion, King's African Rifles during the Second World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Leakey's 1/6th Battalion was part of the 22nd (East African) Brigade (12th African Division).

On 19 May 1941, at Kolito, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), when the Allied forces had made a bridgehead against the strong Italian opposition, the enemy made a sudden counterattack with both light and medium tanks. In the face of withering fire, Sergeant Leakey leaped on top of one of the tanks, wrenched open the turret and shot all the crew except the driver, whom he forced to drive the tank to cover. Along with three others, he tried to repeat this with another tank, but just as he opened the turret, he was killed. The confusion and loss of armour Leakey caused was critical to the Italian defeat in the battle.[6] Captain David Hines witnessed the event through binoculars, as did other soldiers.[7][8]

Leakey has no known grave but he is commemorated on the East Africa Memorial, near Nairobi, Kenya.[9]

His second cousin twice removed, Joshua Leakey, was also awarded the Victoria Cross for his service in Afghanistan in 2013.[10]

Leakey's medal is kept by a member of the Leakey family in England.[11]


  • v
  • t
  • e
Leakey family tree
James Leakey
(1775–1865)[i]		Eliza Hubbard Woolmer
(1793–1855)[ii]
James Shirley Leakey
(1824–1871) [citation needed]		Caroline Woolmer Leakey
(1827–1881)[ii]		9 others[ii]
Rev. Arundell Leakey
(1853–1924)		Rev. Harry Leakey
(1868–1940)
Elizabeth Laing
(1873–1925)[iii][iv]		Arundell Gray Arundell Leakey
(1885–1954)[iii][iv]		5 othersHenrietta Wilfrida Avern
(1902–1993)		Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey[iv]
(1903–1972)		Mary Douglas Nicol
(1913–1996)		3 others
Nigel Gray Leakey
(1913–1941)[iii][iv]		Robert Dove Leakey
(1914–2013)		Maj. Gen. Arundell Rea Leakey
(1915–1999)		Agnes Florence Leakey
(1917–2006)[iv]		Colin Louis Avern Leakey
(1933–2018)		Meave Epps
(b. 1942)		Richard Erskine Frere Leakey
(1944–2022)		Margaret CropperJonathan Harry Erskine Leakey
(1940–2021)		Philip Leakey
(b. 1949)
Lt. Gen. Arundell David Leakey
(b. 1952)		Louise Leakey
(b. 1972)		Emmanuel,
Prince de Mérode
(b. 1970)
Notes:
  1. ^ O'Donoghue, F. M.; Remington, V. (revised) (2004). "Leakey, James (1775–1865), miniature painter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16244. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ a b c "Eliza Hubbard Woolmer, wife of James Leakey". Artsandculture.google.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 6 April 2022. Elizabeth Hubbard Woolmer was born on 20 December 1793. ... On 28 August 1815 she married the artist James Leakey (1775-1865) at St. Sidwell's Church, Exeter (2). They had eleven children. ... Caroline Woolmer Leakey (1827-1881)
  3. ^ a b c "Serjeant Nigel Gray Leakey | War Casualty Details". cwgc.org. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Archived from the original on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022. NIGEL GRAY LEAKEY ... Died 19 May 1941 Age 28 years old ... Son of Arundell Gray A. and Elizabeth Leakey, of Kiganjo, Kenya.
  4. ^ a b c d e Lean, Mary (26 January 2007). "Agnes Hofmeyr, Worker for reconciliation in Africa". The Independent. Archived from the original on 22 September 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2022. Agnes Leakey, worker for reconciliation: born Limuru, Kenya 8 May 1917; married 1946 Bremer Hofmeyr (died 1993; one son, and one son deceased); died Johannesburg 1 December 2006. ... Agnes Leakey was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1917, the youngest child of Gray Leakey, cousin of the anthropologist Louis Leakey, and his first wife, Elizabeth. ... in 1926, when Elizabeth died ... She married a South African colleague, Bremer Hofmeyr, in 1946. ... in ... 1954 ... Mau Mau fighters ... attacked her father's farm, killed her stepmother and abducted her father. ... [he was] buried alive, in a shallow grave on Mount Kenya. ... she lost her eldest brother, Nigel Leakey, in 1941 at Colito, where he won the Victoria Cross. Three years after Bremer's death, in 1993, their elder son, Murray, was killed in a car accident in Johannesburg.

See also

References

  1. ^ Obituary: Agnes Hofmeyr, The Independent, 26 January 2007
  2. ^ "No. 27839". The London Gazette. 26 September 1905. p. 6475.
  3. ^ 6 Myths about the ‘Mau Mau’ War; The Charging Buffalo: A History of the Kenya Regiment 1937–1963, Guy Campbell, p.78; Time Magazine for Monday 1 November 1954, under Blood Brother.
  4. ^ The Five Victoria Crosses of Bromsgrove SchoolArchived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Campbell, Guy (1986). The Charging Buffalo: A History of the Kenya Regiment 1937–1963. Leo Cooper, London. p. 26. ISBN 0-436-08290-X
  6. ^ "No. 37349". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 November 1945. p. 5571.
  7. ^ [Two-hour interview by WD Ogilvie of David Hines in 1999]
  8. ^ Obituary by WD Ogilvie in the London Daily Telegraph 8 April 2000.
  9. ^ CWGC entry
  10. ^ "Victoria Cross: L/Cpl Josh Leakey recognised for valour". BBC News. 26 February 2015.
  11. ^ "Nigel Gray Leakey VC". VC online. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
Authority control databases: People Edit this at Wikidata
  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission