Daniel Pedoe - Early Life

Early Life

Dan Pedoe was born in London in 1910, the son of an immigrant from Poland who found himself in London in the 1890s. His father had boarded a cattleboat not knowing whether it was bound for New York or London so his final destination was one of blind chance. Dan Pedoe's mother was the only child of a corn merchant from Łomża (part of Poland under Russian control). "Danny" was the youngest child in a family of some thirteen children and his childhood was spent in relative poverty in the East End of London. As a schoolboy he attended the Central Foundation Boys' School where he was first influenced in his love of geometry by the headmaster Norman M. Gibbins and a textbook by Godfrey and Siddons. He was successful at the "ten plus" examination and subsequently won a Scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge University.

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