Shane Leslie - Childhood and Education

Childhood and Education

Leslie was born in Glaslough, County Monaghan, into a wealthy Anglo-Irish landowning family (49,968 acres). His father was Sir John Leslie, 2nd Baronet, and his mother, Leonie Jerome, was the sister of Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie. Both were daughters of Leonard W. Jerome. His ancestor, the Right Reverend John Leslie, Bishop of the Isles, moved from Scotland to Ireland in 1633 when he was made Bishop of Raphoe in County Donegal and was subsequently made Bishop of Clogher in 1661. Bishop Leslie was a vocal opponent of Oliver Cromwell.

Together with his brother Norman, Leslie's early education began at home where a German governess, Clara Woelke, was their first teacher. As children the brothers had more contact with servants than they had with their parents. Leslie's own daughter, Anita, said that "In my parents' view schools performed the same functions that kennels did for dogs. They were places where pets could be conveniently deposited while their owners travelled."

Leslie was educated at Ludgrove School, then Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge University he became a Roman Catholic and a supporter of Irish Home Rule. He adopted an anglicised Irish variant of his name ("Shane"). Not overly impressed by Eton, as a lower boy he and his roommates occupied "an old battered warren betwixt the chapel cemetery and Wise's horse yard ... he food was wretched and tasteless ... As for thrashings which tyrannised rather than disciplined our house, they were excessive. Bullying was endemic and Irish boys were ridiculed, especially at St Patrick's Day."

Leslie refused to send his own sons to Eton. They were educated at Roman Catholic Benedictine schools: Jack at Downside School and Desmond at Ampleforth College.