He was born in Bohuslav near Kyiv in June 1881 and was a direct descendant of the eminent rabbi Moses Isserles.
He moved to Britain when he was ten years old with his widowed mother, an elder brother and two sisters.
He attended the City of London School and won an open scholarship to study mathematics at Christ's College, Cambridge.
Upon leaving Cambridge in 1904 he was appointed head of mathematics at the West Ham Municipal Technical Institute (one of the forerunners of the University of East London).
He also registered as a research student at University College London, where he studied under Karl Pearson, and was awarded a D.Sc.