 Born in Maida Vale, London, to a family of German Jewish/Polish Jewish background, Victor Gollancz was the son of a wholesale jeweller and the nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz.His grandfather, Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gollancz, had migrated to the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century from Witkowo, near Gniezno (then Gnesen in Prussia) to become cantor of the Hambro' Synagogue in London.After being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking a degree in classics at New College, Oxford, he became a schoolteacher.