Educated at Rugby School and St John's College, Cambridge, Leake was placed 24th in the list of Wranglers in 1854.
[2] As a cricketer, he played as a batsman, sometimes opening the innings but more often in the middle order; it is not known if he was right-handed or left-handed.
[1] His figures are not impressive by modern standards, but he retained his place in the Cambridge team across four summers and appeared four times, from 1851 to 1854, in the annual University match against Oxford.
[3] After graduating from Cambridge he played one game for a "Gentlemen of England" side in the summer of 1854 and once for MCC in 1858.
[1] After graduating, Leake appears to have gone to Sri Lanka, then called "Ceylon", as a civil engineer but then to have become involved in the introduction tea and cinnamon as crops on the island.