James Llewellin Digby Roberts was born on 15 July 1912 at Kalimpong, India, where his father was a medical missionary. His early years were spent in India, where a favourite family pastime was butterfly hunting on horseback: the superb family collection, which his father initiated, was to become a l

John Charles Leedham-Green was born in Birmingham on 30 October 1902, eldest son of Charles Albert Leedham-Green FRCS (1867-1931), sometime Professor of Surgery at Birmingham University, and his wife, Ethel, née Lees. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read chemist