Victor Gollancz was born in London on 9 April 1893 into a family of Polish origin with a long rabbinical heritage. Two uncles, Hermann and Israel, were knighted for academic achievements. The unquestioning Jewish orthodoxy and political conservatism of Alex Gollancz, a jeweller, roused his son to life-long rebellion. After St. Paul's School, from 1912-14, Gollancz was a classics scholar of New College, Oxford; his army service consisted mainly of a period of secondment to Repton School (1916-18) from which he was dismissed for stirring up political dissension among staff and pupils
