Norbert Leo Maxwell Reader was born at Marshfield, Gloucestershire, on 13 October 1885. His father, Jeremiah Reader, was a doctor of medicine. He was educated at Wakefield Grammar School, Stonyhurst and at Leeds University, where he won the anatomy prize. He went from there to Guy's Hospital where h

John Whittingdale, the son of Dr John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale, MB Cambridge, MRCS, and of Marie Whittingdale (née Jennings), was born on 14 June 1894 in Sherborne, Dorset. He was to spend most of his long life in that place. After education at Sherborne Preparatory School and Sherborne School,