James Alfred Leonard was born in 1879 to Charles and Pamela Leonard in Kent, England.
The Leonard family was living in Rochester, Kent, where Charles had a drapery business on the High Street.
In 1891, James, 13, was a boarder at Buckland Hill school in Maidstone, Kent. His brother William John, 14, was also there.
In 1901, James, 23, worked as a House Builder’s Assistant.
In the January 1905 Gazette, James is listed as a bankrupt. He was a builder living at 10 South Avenue, Rochester. In the April 1908 Gazette he has an application for Debtors Discharge to be heard at the Courthouse in Rochester.
James married Amy Louise Ellis in 1903 at Croydon, Surrey, England. Amy died in 1910.
The 1911 census has James living at Broad House, Rochester, and with occupation Art Dealer. Geoffrey, Kenneth, and Freda are there along with housekeeper Ethel Higham and Lily Bentley, servant.
In 1912 James and his two sons emigrated to New Zealand. Daughter Freda was listed to be a passenger on the voyage from London to Wellington, New Zealand, but did not travel, and instead was cared for by the Torond family.
For a time James and the two boys Geoffrey and Kenneth lived on the Hauraki Plains, at Thames and Ohinemuri.
Later they were living in Auckland, in Roskill and then on the North Shore.
James remarried in 1823, to Florence Gertrude Leafberg, who was a widow with two children.
James died in Auckland in 1965 aged 88 yrs.