Born in Eastern Bengal, 23 June 1878, the sixth child and second son of Frederick William Joseph Rees, of the Bengal civil service, and Alice Hawthorn Heathcote, his wife. He was educated at Haileybury and the Middlesex Hospital, where he won a prize in anatomy and in 1899 a second-year exhibition,

Born in Edinburgh on 27 November 1870, the third child and second son of Alexander Dick, grain merchant of Leith, and Catherine Lawson, his wife. He was educated at Stewarts College and the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MB CM winning the university medals in midwifery and gynaecology,