He was born at 7 Clifton Place, Shipley in the county of West Yorkshire in 1892, and two years later his family moved to Robin Hood"s Bay on the coast of present-day North Yorkshire, where he was schooled at the old Wesleyan chapel. He was the son of the painter Ulric Walmsley.
In 1912 the young Leo secured the post of curator-caretaker of the Robin Hood"s Bay Marine Laboratory at five shillings a week. After a plane crash he was sent home, and eventually pursued a literary career. He settled at Pont Pill near Polruan in Cornwall, where he became friendly with the writer Daphne du Maurier.
He died in Fowey, Cornwall, on 8 June 1966.
Many of his books are mainly autobiographical, the best known are his Bramblewick series set in Robin Hood"s Bay – Foreigners, Three Fevers, Phantom Lobster and Sally Lunn, the second of which was filmed as Turn of the Tide (1935). 1991 – The Honey Gatherers – Peter J. Woods
1995 – Autumn Gold – Stephanie Walmsley (his widow)
2001 – Shells and Bright Stones – Nona Stead (ed).
