Born on 1 May 1893, the son of an Instructor Captain in the Royal Navy and his French wife, he was born at Brest and spent his infancy in Japan, with the result that he could speak Japanese before he could speak English. Educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and the Middlesex Hospital, he qualified

Born on 16 July 1890, the third child and only son of James Hunter, a shipbroker, and Mary Hood, his wife; his parents both died while he was a child. He was brought up by his aunts at Ayr, and sent to Bedford School, where he proved a good Rugby player, and to St John's College, Cambridge, where he