[1][2][3] Walter Warwick Sawyer was born in St. Ives, Hunts, England on April 5, 1911.
He was an undergraduate at St. John's College, Cambridge, obtaining a BA in 1933 and specializing in quantum theory and relativity.
He left Canterbury College to become an associate professor at the University of Illinois, where he worked from winter 1957 through June 1958.
In the fall of 1965 he became a professor at the University of Toronto, appointed to both the College of Education and the Department of Mathematics.
[1] Some mathematicians have credited these books with helping to inspire their choice of a career.