 He was educated at King's Collegiate School, Windsor, Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia where he was awarded a BSc in 1934 and an MSc in 1936.He then proceeded to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his first PhD in 1938 on the anomalous thermal behaviour of the ferro-electric Rochelle salt.Awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship in 1937, he left MIT for St John's College, Cambridge and the Cavendish Laboratory in 1938.