Leicester, who died last week at the age or 68 had been student, soldier, Egyptian Government official and seedsman's clerk.
13001 in 1887 at Latchford, near Warrington, he wished as 3 young man to be a priest, and studied at Pantasaph. Amplefonh and Louvain. When the Germans invaded Belgium in 1414 and the English students made their mime to this country, Fr. Lea enlisted in a "Bantam" battalion arid was posted to Egypt. There he acted
as secretary to a General and later as a junior official in the Egyptian Ministry of Finance.
Returning to England, he became a clerk in a firm of seed:men,hutetill longing for the priestly life. and encouraged by Archbishop Whitoside of Liverpool, he went first of all to the home for "late vocations" at Osterley. later to Oscott College, Birmingham, and finally to the Bede
College in Rome,
He was ordained in Nottingham in 1926.
Fr. Lea served at St. Mary's Glossop, St. Philip Neri, Mansfield, as parish priest of St. Joseph's, New Allerton, and finally at Ashby-de-la Zoach.