Frank William Law was born in Isleworth, London, on 14 August 1898, the third son of Thomas Law, a drapery warehouseman, and his wife Emma, née MacRae. He was educated at St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge, proceeding to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical studies where he graduat

George William Black was born in Boston, Lincolnshire on 21 January 1903 and was educated at Boston Grammar School and at the Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1926. During his early years in London he became very conscious of the divisions in English life, joining the Fabian Society and becoming a