Colonel William Gerard Leigh RIP

Kyt · Oct 1, 2008

Colonel William Gerard Leigh - Telegraph

Colonel William Gerard Leigh, who has died aged 93, served in the Life Guards throughout the Second World War and beyond and was a popular and respected figure in the polo world.

William Henry Gerard Leigh (always known as G) was born on August 5 1915, the only son and eldest child of Lt-Col John Gerard Leigh, of Thorpe Satchville Hall, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, and his American wife, Helen, the daughter of William Judd Goudy, of Chicago.

The Leighs were originally from Lipton, in Lancashire, and an ancestor, John Shaw Leigh, bought Luton Hoo, in Bedfordshire, the house built by Robert Adam for the 3rd Earl of Bute; in 1903, after the death of G's grandfather, it was sold to Julius Wernher and it was later the home of Sir Harold and Lady Zia Wernher.

Gerard Leigh was introduced to polo in boyhood, when he sat astride a wooden horse as balls were pitched towards him by the 10-goal All-England player Lord Wodehouse (later the 3rd Earl of Kimberley), whose family lived nearby. Gerard Leigh later recalled: "Lord Wodehouse much enjoyed the occasion when I smacked a ball through his parents' dining-room window."

He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read History and was Master of the Draghounds and a member of the university's polo team. In 1937 he joined the Life Guards. During the winter he kept a private hunter, along with two Life Guards chargers at home, and hunted with the Quorn, Cottesmore and Belvoir, earning a reputation as "a bold man to hounds".

Much of his summer was devoted to polo, his squadron leader being Major (later Colonel) Andrew Ferguson, who was a painstaking instructor. In 1938 and 1939 Gerard Leigh was a member of the Life Guards captains' and subalterns' team. They played on the Household Cavalry ground at Datchet or at Hurlingham, where the Life Guards' ponies were stabled. In Goodwood week 1939 he was included (on a 1 handicap) in the team that carried off the Cowdray Park Challenge Cup.

Gerard Leigh spent the Second World War – first with horses, then with armoured cars – in Palestine, Syria and the Western Desert. He then fought through Italy before going on leave to England in 1944, after which he assumed command of a squadron in 1 HCR's battles in north-west Europe.

Having completed the Staff College course in 1946 he was appointed DAA and QMG at the headquarters of the Household Brigade and London District. He subsequently commanded the Life Guards Mounted Squadron, after which he put in a two-year spell as adjutant of the territorial regiment affiliated to the Household Cavalry, the Inns of Court.

In 1953 Gerard Leigh took command of the Life Guards in Germany, and the next year the regiment was posted to Britain's Canal Zone in Egypt. Aside from his military duties, he trained and led his regimental polo team. In 1955 he returned to London to take over as commander of the Household Cavalry, a post which also carried the Court appointment of Silver Stick. He retired from the Army in 1958.

In 1955 Gerard Leigh had succeeded his old schoolfriend and brother-officer in 1HCR, Valerian Douro, as chairman of the Household Brigade Polo Club. Now playing off a 3 handicap, he joined the Duke of Edinburgh's medium-goal Windsor Park team and in 1962 accompanied the Duke on a polo-playing trip around some of the South American clubs while the Duke was promoting British industry.

In 1966, at the invitation of the Argentine Polo Association, an English squad flew out to take on the United States and Argentina for a "three-cornered" tournament. Gerard Leigh accompanied them as part-time equerry to the Duke, who was among those selected to play.

When Gerard Leigh was invited, in 1960, to judge the ladies' hacks at the Aldershot show, he found himself sitting, at lunch, next to the Rothmans' representative, and their dialogue led, eventually, to the club's initial sponsorship. The firm sponsored the club's first high-goal tournament, the Queen's Cup.

When the Commonwealth Games were staged in Jamaica in 1966, the Jamaican Polo Association invited the Duke of Edinburgh, who was attending the games in an official capacity, to bring over a team to play a series of matches at Kingston against the island's best foursome. The Duke took with him three of the club's leading players, Lord Waterford and his brother, Lord Patrick Beresford, and Gerard Leigh himself.

During Gerard Leigh's 25-year stewardship, the Household Brigade club (which became the Guards Polo Club in 1969) and its annual programme expanded considerably. He also oversaw the building of the first Royal Box, in 1971. He offered his resignation on several occasions during the 1970s, but each time was persuaded to stay on. He finally stood down in 1981.

From 1974 to 1981, Gerard Leigh was chairman of the national council of YMCAs. He was appointed MVO in 1962, CBE in 1981 and CVO in 1983.

He married, in 1946, Jean Leslie, who survives him with their two sons and two daughters.

During the war Jean Leslie had served with M15, and in 1943 her photograph was placed on the corpse of a man dumped in the sea near the Spanish coast. He was purportedly "Major Willie Martin", a Royal Marines officer whose briefcase contained bogus plans to mislead the Germans about the Allied landings in Sicily; and Jean Leslie was purportedly his girlfriend. The story was portrayed in the 1956 film The Man who Never Was.
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