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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