John Charles Nicholson was born at Chilworth, Surrey, on 10 January 1904, the son of Sir Charles Archibald Nicholson, the church architect, from whom he inherited the baronetcy in 1949, and the grandson of Sir Charles Nicholson, DCL, LLD, MD, one of the founders of Sydney University and its first Ch

Sir Geoffrey Bateman was a distinguished ENT surgeon at St Thomas's, London. He was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, on 24 October 1906, where his father, William Bateman, was a general practitioner. His mother was Ethel Jane Scrimgeour. His elder brother, Donald Bateman, wrote a biography of Lord Moyn