Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India, to an English father and a mother of Hungarian Jewish descent. His father was Charles Frederick Amery (1833–1901), of Lustleigh, Devon, an officer in the Indian Forestry Commission. His mother Elisabeth Johanna Saphir ("c". 1841–1908), who was the sister of the orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, had come to India from England, where her parents had settled and converted to Protestantism. In 1877 his mother moved back to England from India, and in 1885 she divorced Charles.