Early Life
The parents of Charles Coulson and his younger twin brother John Metcalfe Coulson were educators who hailed from the Midlands. The twins were born when their father, Arthur, was Principal of Dudley Technical College and Superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School, and their mother Annie was Headmistress of Tipton Secondary School, close by. Dudley is about 25 miles west of Birmingham and 10 miles east of Wolverhampton. Coulson's parents maintained a religious Methodist home.
When the Coulson brothers were 10, their father was appointed Superintendent of Technical Colleges for the South-West of England, and the family moved to Bristol. Charles attended the XIV Preparatory School. When he was 13, he was awarded a scholarship to Clifton College, a Public School in Bristol that placed a strong emphasis on science and mathematics. His hobbies and recreations included stamp collecting, cricket, tennis and chess.
Coulson's academic success at Clifton earned him an Entrance Scholarship in Mathematics to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1928.
His brother John also excelled at school, and went on to become Professor of Chemical Engineering at Newcastle University, and author of a major series of texts on chemical engineering.
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