Archibald Louis Percy Jeffery was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St Thomas's Hospital, where he won the Beaney Scholarship in surgery and pathology in 1924. After qualifying both with the Conjoint Diploma and the London MB, BS, he obtained the Fellowship of the College and the MS in 1926,

Harold Clifford Edwards was born in Newport, Monmouthshire on 15 August 1899, the second son of William Evans Edwards, Professor of Music, and Mary Selina (née Jones). He was educated at St Woollos School and Newport Intermediate School before joining the Royal Engineers in 1917 as a skilled sapper.