[1] He was born to a hill farming family in Llanaelhaearn, in the administrative county of Caernarvonshire (now Gwynedd), in the Llŷn Peninsula of north Wales.
He attended Pwllheli county school (now Ysgol Glan y Môr) from where he won a scholarship to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1910, graduating in 1914 with a first in Economics.
[1] In World War I he joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers as an officer in 1915 and did service on the Western Front.
[1] At the University of London, he held many important offices including the vice-chancellorship (1945–8) and chairmanship of the court (1962–70).
[3] In 1923 he married Hâf (1898–1965), only daughter of Sir Owen Morgan Edwards an inspector of education for Wales and briefly Liberal Member of Parliament for Merionethshire.