Born near Tipton St John. His mother died when he was one. Recorded at Harcombe with his father & stepmother from 1829-30.
Arrived in Port Phillip w brother John on barque "Westminster" from Plymouth 30 July 1841. Both were recorded as "Farmservants", able to both read & write, and travelled under the govt bounty of 19 pounds. Both left the ship without employment. Wm Hy was present as witness to John's marriage on 5 Aug 1842, and is shown as John's partner in renting & buying land in the Barrabool Hills in the Geelong district, from 1846, near what would become the village of Ceres.
In May 1852 a flood swept away the existing Barwon Bridge, and W.H.Leigh was appointed Treasurer of a residents' group attempting to establish a punt to link Duneed and Barrabool to Geelong, but the government then provided a free punt until a new bridge was built.
Wm Hy may have gone to the gold diggings in the early 1850s as the partners began buying land then. The brothers bought "Fairley" and land at Darriwill in 1853, and "Prospect" in 1857, and remained joint owners until Wm Hy died in 1884, bequeathing all his real estate to his "dear brother John"; this included the house "Mount Pleasant" in Salcombe Rd, Sidmouth, Devon (Salcombe Regis parish), which he bought in 1868, retiring there with his widowed sister Julia Mary Brown. It was probably he who sailed for England on the "Poitiers" 28 Mar 1854 with a Darriwill neighbour James Capron. (It was a William Capron who finally bought the Darriwill land from John Leigh's executors when both brothers were dead.) His will was made on 13 Aug 1855, in Exeter, when he was "residing with my father John Leigh of Sidbury in the county of Devon, yeoman", but he is described as "of..Victoria".
His signature on the lease of "Fairley" to Charles Cox on 19 June 1856 suggests that he returned to Victoria before his final retirement. A William Henry Leigh aged 30 arr in Vic on the “Morning Star” Jan 1856 B 792 003. (A reference to "Mr & Mrs Leigh" of "advanced" age being cabin passengers on the "Mermaid", arr. from Liverpool 11 Feb 1856, is unlikely to apply to Wm Hy.) He and John were both members of the first Board of Guardians of Holy Trinity Church, Barrabool, in 1848. A generous donation to this church, and the name of a Mr William Lee on a passenger list to England in 1859, seem to be the last records of Wm Hy in Victoria.
In the 1861 Census for Somerset, William H Leigh, Visitor, Unmarried, aged 43, born Devon - Ottery St Mary, is shown as a visitor in the household of his brother-in-law and sister, Lopen. Crewkerne.73
His name appears on a deed relating to Mount Pleasant in Sidmouth in 1868, so he may have bought it then or earlier. He appears on the 1871 Census in Sidmouth as living at Mount Pleasant with Julia Mary Brown. His photograph, by William Bray, Old Fore St, Sidmouth, is endorsed "Taken 1877". His sister Julia Mary acted as attorney for his executor John Leigh when Wm Hy died in 1884. John died two years later, and bequeathed Mount Pleasant to his daughter Julia Mary Masters who had gone to England and married, settling in Broadclyst, Devon. Mount Pleasant seems to have been sold on 14 June 1907, and is now (2001) an hotel.