Born 25 November 1862 at The Wick, Southchurch, near Thorpe Bay, Essex, the seventh child and third son of Charles Wordley Francis, farmer, and Mary, his wife, daughter of George Belcham of Rayleigh, Essex. He was educated at Clewer House, Windsor, Worthing College, and University College School. He

Born 23 November 1874 the fourth child and second son of John Mortimer Hunt, a business man, and his wife, née Henderson. He was educated at Harrow, at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took first-class honours in the final school of physiology and worked for a year with Professor J S Haldane, and a