Early Life and Education
John Raven was born on 13 December 1914 in Cambridge, the son of Charles Earle Raven, sometime Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge and of Margaret Wollaston. His mother's family endowed Raven with a distinguished intellectual pedigree, including between 1723 and 1829 seven Fellows of the Royal Society (among them Charlton Wollaston, Francis Wollaston (1694-1774), Francis Wollaston (1762-1823), George Wollaston and William Hyde Wollaston); Raven was also a 7th generation direct descendent of William Wollaston, the philosophical writer. On his father's side, he was related to Dean Hole.
Raven was educated at St Ronan's School, then situated at Worthing, before proceeding in September 1928 with a scholarship to Marlborough College, where he distinguished himself academically, winning prizes in English verse, Greek iambics, Greek and Latin prose and Latin verse, culminating in a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. He did not confine himself to the intellectual, playing in the first XV at rugby and setting new school records in 1934 for the high jump and 440 yards.
Following the award of a first class degree in classics at Trinity Raven became in 1946 a research fellow there. In October 1948 he was elected a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, a position he held until his retirement in 1984.
During the Second World War he was a conscientious objector, basing his case on arguments by Plato. He undertook unsalaried social work for Guy Clutton-Brock at Oxford House in Bethnal Green.
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