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.
In 1942 he moved to King's College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (later being named the University of Newcastle).
His proposers were Sir Edmund Whittaker, John William Heslop-Harrison, Alexander Aitken and Alfred Dennis Hobson.
[4] In 1948 he left Newcastle to become Professor of Mathematics at Birkbeck College in London replacing Prof Dienes.
In 1945 he married Margaret Yvonne Pickard (generally known as Rita), an English teacher.