 In fact he was the illegitimate child of Thomas Orde Hastings Lees, a former barrister and the Chief constable of Northampton, and Ada Mary Pattenden (1852–1932), a daughter of the Reverend Canon George Edwin Pattenden, headmaster of Boston Grammar School.Ada was sent off to Thomas' brother's house in Aachen for the birth.The Lees family was well off; they lived in the Northampton Chief Constable's house with a number of servants.