Tutin was born on 21 April 1908 in
Kew, Surrey, son of Frank Tutin, a biochemist at the
Lister Institute, and his wife, Jane Ardern. He was educated at
Cotham Grammar School, Bristol, then won a scholarship to
Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied
Biological Sciences. In 1929, while still an undergraduate, he went on a botanical expedition to
Madeira and the
Azores, afterwards publishing two papers on the results of his studies there. After graduating in 1930 he stayed in Cambridge, interrupted by biological expeditions in 1931 to southern
Spain and
Spanish Morocco, and in 1933 to
British Guiana, where the expedition was based on the banks of the
Essequibo River. After that trip he moved to
Plymouth to work in the laboratory of the
Marine Biological Association, researching a disease of
eel grass. In 1937 he joined the
Percy Sladen Trust expedition to
Lake Titicaca, resulting in a significant publication on the development and stability of lake plant communities. After a short period as a demonstrator at
King's College London, he became an assistant lecturer at the
University of Manchester. There, in addition to teaching and fire-watching duties occasioned by the
War, he developed his interests in lake algae begun during the Titicaca expedition. This led to visits to the research station of the
Freshwater Biological Association near
Windermere, where he met his future wife. In early 1942 Tutin joined the geographical section of the Admiralty's
Naval Intelligence Division in
Cambridge, which was producing
a series of geographical handbooks for military use. Tutin's part in this was to survey the
fenlands of the north of England for
buckthorn, whose charcoal was used in certain shell fuses. ==Leicester==