Born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 16 March 1881, the eldest child of Henry Septimus Miller, a timber merchant, and Annie Elizabeth Potts, his wife. His childhood was spent in Canada, but his parents came back in 1893 and he was educated in London at William Ellis's school and Guy's Hospital, where he won

Henry Nightingale was born in Kingston on Thames on 21 April 1880. His father, James, was a surveyor and his mother before marriage was Agnes Thrupp. He went to school at Kingston Grammar School from where he obtained a scholarship to King's College, London. Nightingale next gained a scholarship