Walter Lea was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire on Saturday, 9th June 1872 and baptised along with his twin sister Alice at St John the Evangelist Church in Boxmoor on Sunday, 14th July in the same year. He was the fourth son and seventh of eight children born to William Lea and Ann Leaton. Walter’s siblings were. Emma, Ellen, William, Charles, John, Alice (his older twin) and Harriet Elizabeth. Walter grew up at Green End in Boxmoor at the western end of St John’s Road. In February 1877 he started school when he entered Boxmoor JMI and he completed his education there in May 1883. When he left school, he followed his father William and some of his brothers into the domestic gardening trade, the job he was to do for the rest of his adult life.

He first worked in the Watford area and it was there that he met his future wife Ruth Stranks. Ruth, a native of Northamptonshire, was in domestic service and she and Walter soon became sweethearts. They were married at St Mary’s Church in Watford, on Saturday, 30th September 1893. Their first child, a daughter Olive Elizabeth, was born in Watford in 1895 and shortly afterwards, Walter and Ruth, with their new baby, returned to Hemel Hempstead when he obtained a new position as a ‘Gardener’. In 1898 he took up a position with Edward Alfred Mitchell-Innes at "Churchill" on Park Road in Boxmoor. Mitchell-Innes was a barrister and Kings Counsel and a one-time Mayor of Hemel Hempstead. He lost his only son Gilbert in the Great War in May 1915 and Gilbert’s biography is also on this site.

Walter, Ruth and Olive moved to Heath Park Lane in Boxmoor on their return and their second child Arthur John, known fondly as "Jack", joined them just a year later. Their final child Norah was born in 1901. Jack would also see service in the Great War and thankfully survived the conflict. The family then moved into “Churchill Cottage” on Park Road adjacent to the main house, when Walter became Head Gardener to the Mitchell-Innes family. In all, Walter had worked for the family for 20 years by the time he eventually went to war. Walter was also keenly interested in politics and for a number of years he was the Chairman and Secretary of the Boxmoor branch of the Conservative Association.

On the outbreak of war Walter was overage for service and instead he joined the No. 4 Company (Hemel Hempstead) Hertfordshire Volunteer Training Corps as soon as it was formed in 1915. Known locally as the "Volunteers", Walter’s employer Edward Mitchell-Innes was invited to be the Commandant. Walter remained with the Volunteers until the end of 1915 when he decided to enlist and travelled to Watford to attest. He joined the Labour Corps and was assigned to the Norfolk Regiment for basic training. He went first to Harwich and was then transferred to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and went to the Isle of Wight to complete his training before being sent overseas in 1916.

Although his military records state the 3rd Battalion, he was in fact posted to the 2nd Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s L.I. which was in Salonika in Greece. He spent the next two years in the Balkans as part of 820 Area Employment (AE) Company. An "AE" Company carried out a wide range of activities and jobs such as Batman, Cook, Shoemaker, Policeman, Bath hous Attendant, Laundry Man amongst many others. It is not known what Walter was assigned to do but it is known that he became ill towards the end of the war. He had contracted malaria and was suffering from dysentery some time before October 1918, and the effects of his illness eventually forced his admission to hospital. Either one could be fatal and in Walter’s case he was unable to recover from his illnesses and died on Thursday, 24th October 1918, just over two weeks before the Armistice was signed ending the Great War.

Walter was commemorated on the war memorial plaque in the Church of St John the Evangelist in Boxmoor, where he had been baptised and where he worshipped before the war.

He is Remembered with Honour in the Kirechkoi-Hortakoi Military Cemetery, Salonika, Greece, where he is interred in Grave 390. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his wife Ruth, reads: “THINE, THINE IS STILL THIS WITHER'D HEART TILL WE SHALL MEET AGAIN”.

He was 46 years old when he died.

Walter was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.