He was born in
London on 9 June 1906 the eldest child of Albert Edwin Offord, a master printer, and his wife Hester Louise, a former opera singer. The family were
Plymouth Brethren. He was educated at
Hackney Downs Grammar School. He then studied Mathematics at
University College, London. He then went to
St John's College, Cambridge as a postgraduate, working with Prof
John Edensor Littlewood. He received two Ph.D.s in mathematics: the first from the
University of London (under
Bosanquet) in 1932, the second from
Cambridge (under
Hardy) in 1936. In 1940 he left Cambridge to lecture at
University College, Bangor. In 1942 he moved to King's College,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne (later being named the University of Newcastle). He was created Professor of Mathematics in 1945. In 1946 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir
Edmund Whittaker,
John William Heslop-Harrison,
Alexander Aitken and
Alfred Dennis Hobson. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London in 1952. In 1948 he left Newcastle to become Professor of Mathematics at
Birkbeck College in
London replacing Prof Dienes. He left in 1966 to take up a new chair at
London School of Economics. He retired in 1973 then becoming a senior research fellow at
Imperial College, London. He died in
Oxford on 4 June 2000. ==Family==