David Whitteridge: 22 June 1912 - 15 June 1994.

Abstract

David Whitteridge was born in South Norwood, London, on 22 June 1912, the second of three children. His father William Randall Whitteridge came from a Baptist family, and was a manufacturer’s agent whose living depended on the export of woollen goods and was at times precarious. His mother Jeanne was of French and Dutch Protestant ancestry; her family were small farmers in Normandy. She came to this country as a governess and to teach French; she was later to be distinguished for taking and passing O-level German and A-level French, at the ages of 89 and 90 respectively. David’s brother, Gordon, K.C.M.G., became a diplomat and his sister, Marcelle Elizabeth, married Robert Audley Furtado, C.B. After five years at All Saints, a good church school in North Norwood, David won a Foundation Scholarship to Whitgift School in Croydon (1922-31). He spoke of his time there with some affection. As a Foundation scholar he was expected to take Greek and Latin for School Certificate, but in his four years in the VIth form he specialized in the sciences. The physics and chemistry teaching was exceptionally good, the biology ‘best passed over’. He played rugby in the First XV (just) and was a member of the shooting VIII. An accomplished all-rounder, he left in 1931 with a leaving scholarship and a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford to read physiology and medicine.