Otway Trevor McRitchie Leckie was born in India on 18 August 1882. He was the eldest of three sons of Surgeon Major David Leckie and Agnes Isabella Kean Brown. The family moved back to the UK and lived at 11 Chatsworth Square, Carlisle. Otway was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and commissioned into the 104th Wellesley’s Rifles on 18 April 1903. He was attached to the Malay State Guides from 1906 to 1909 and returned to the 104th when they went on the Mekran Expedition in 1911. He was Signalling Officer in that operation, and promoted to Captain. In November 1913 Captain Leckie and Major Bailey took 100 men from No.1 Double Company (Rajputs) to Partabargh Fort to suppress a Bheel rising in Sunth State. The journey included a march of 46 miles made in 22 hours.
He went with the regiment to Mesopotamia when war broke out in 1914. At the battle of Shaiba on 13 April 1915, Captain Leckie, who was already wounded, lost his life. The regiment captured 150 prisoners, including 7 officers, of the 104th Turkish Regiment, also a Turkish flag which for many years was displayed in the officers' mess. The History of the regiment says:
‘It was here that an incident occurred which cast a gloom over the whole Regiment. As Captain Leckie, who was commanding No.2 Double Company, was charging the line of Turkish trenches, the Turks in front of him began putting up their hands in token of surrender. Leckie at once tried to hold back his men from bayoneting the Turks, when one of the enemy immediately in front of him shot him at two or three yards’ range. His Jats, seeing their Officer shot treacherously, as they thought, went straight in with their fixed swords and killed every Turk in that section of the Trench.’
The photo of him in a white jacket is a detail from a group of officers of the 104th Wellesley’s Rifles taken on 6 Feb 1914.
