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Leslie Norton Rolason, born on 12th February 1890, was admitted to King Edward’s School in September 1901. He lived with his grandparents, his widowed mother, Katherine, and his two older sisters at 124, Pershore Road, Northfield. By 1911 the family had moved to 118, Gough Road, and later moved again to ‘Hillcrest’, Wellington Road, Edgbaston.
At School, Leslie was a promising gymnast, winning proxime (that is coming second), in the Lower Removes for the high jump when he was fifteen, although he showed far less aptitude for academic work. After leaving School, he went on to become a jeweller.
In September 1914, Leslie enlisted as a Trooper with the City of London Yeomanry, serving in Egypt and Gallipoli. In August 1915, he was involved in the Yeomanry Charge at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, where heavy casualties were sustained in the uphill night-time raid. He was wounded during the attack and subsequently invalided home with Typhoid (known then as enteric fever). In March 1917, he obtained a commission as Second Lieutenant with the 2/9 London Rifles, leaving for France in the same month. He was wounded for a second time on 27th May 1917, and was killed in action a few months later on 26th September 1917, aged twenty-seven. Leslie’s body was never recovered, but he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. He left his estate of £1,326 to his mother.