He was educated at the local council primary school and, after winning a County Scholarship in 1932, went to Todmorden Grammar School. His physics Teacher there, Luke Sutcliffe, had also taught Sir John Cockcroft, who received a Nobel Prize for "splitting the atom". In 1939 he obtained a Royal Scholarship for study at Imperial College London, from where he graduated in 1941, with his PhD awarded in 1946.