Born at Dunedin, New Zealand on 1 October 1893, the eldest son of (Sir) Louis Barnett, FRCS and his wife Mabel Violet Fulton. He was educated at Christ's College, Dunedin, and the Otago Medical School, where he graduated in 1920. His student years were interrupted by the war, when he volunteered

He was born in London on 29 August 1896 son of Henry John Jeaffreson, insurance broker, and his wife née Gregory. The Jeaffresons came from Framlingham, Suffolk, and there had been several well-known surgeons in the family; William Jeaffreson FRCS (1844) performed the first successful ovariotomy in