Ben Schott - Early Life & University

Early Life & University

Ben Schott was born in North London, England on 26 May 1974, the son of a neurologist and a nurse. He has one brother, also now a neurologist. He went to school at University College School, Hampstead – both the junior school in Holly Hill and the senior school in Frognal.

Schott went to Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences. At Cambridge he was a regular photographer for the university student newspaper Varsity (Cambridge). He played college hockey, cricket, and croquet – though not to a very high standard. He was also a member of a number of dining societies, as well as being secretary of the Shakespeare Society – one of the oldest undergraduate societies in Cambridge. He took a double first in 1996.

After Cambridge, Schott got a job at the London advertising agency J. Walter Thompson where he was as an account manager on the Nestlé Rowntree account working on Smarties, Kit Kat, and Polo. After only four months he resigned to become a freelance photographer.