He was born in Sheffield, the son of a mechanical engineer, and educated at
Repton School and
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He studied medicine at the
Middlesex Hospital Medical School and qualified with the
Conjoint diploma LRCP MRCS in 1939 after which he obtained the Cambridge MA in 1940. After leaving the army he graduated MB BChir at Cambridge in 1948. From 1940 to 1947 he served with the
Royal Army Medical Corps, retiring as a
lieutenant-colonel. He was appointed an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his military work in the provision of blood for transfusions throughout Europe and the Middle East. On his return to Britain he was appointed to the post of founding director of the
Ciba Foundation (now Novartis Foundation), an organisation established to encourage international co-operation in scientific research. He was President of the
Royal Society of Medicine from 1975 to 1977, Harveian Librarian of the
Royal College of Physicians from 1979 to 1989 and Master of the
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries from 1979 to 1980. He was
knighted in 1976. ==Personal life==