J. W. McLeod was born in Dumbarton on 2 January 1887. His father, John, an architect, belonged to a family whose occupations ranged through law, medicine, the civil service, industry and commerce, conducted mainly in the south of Scotland. John McLeod had built up a successful practice, and at the time of his marriage in 1884 had just completed the new Glasgow synagogue— a surprising commission for a Presbyterian. He was then aged forty-five and his bride, Lilias Symington McClymont, who was twenty-one years his junior, was the daughter of what was then described as a gentleman farmer in Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire. Less than four years later John died of diabetes, leaving his widow with two sons, Norman and James. Norman was to work for many years on irrigation schemes in India, and later to become a technical adviser to the World Bank. Four months after her husband’s death, Mrs McLeod bore a third son who was named John, after his father. He was to train as a lawyer and to make his career in banking.