Early Life
T. E. Cliffe Leslie was born in the county of Wexford in (as is believed) the year 1826, the second son of the Rev. Edward Leslie, prebendary of Dromore, and rector of Annahilt, in the county of Down. His family was of Scottish descent, but had been connected with Ireland since the reign of Charles I. Amongst his ancestors were John Leslie (1571–1671), bishop first of Raphoe and afterwards of Clogher, and the bishop's son Charles Leslie.
Cliffe Leslie received his elementary education from his father, who resided in England, though holding church preferment and some landed property in Ireland. His father taught him Latin, Greek and Hebrew at an unusually early age. Afterwards, for a short time he was under the care of a clergyman at Clapham, and was then sent to King William's College, in the Isle of Man.
He entered University of Dublin, Trinity College in 1842, being then only fifteen years of age. He was a distinguished student there, obtaining, besides other honors, a classical scholarship in 1845, and a senior moderatorship (gold medal) in mental and moral philosophy at his degree examination in 1846. He became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, was for two years a pupil in a conveyancers chambers in London, and was called to the English bar. But his attention soon turned from the pursuit of legal practice, for which he seems never to have had much inclination.
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