 He was the great-grandson of German Jewish Professor Adolphus Bernays.He was educated at Rossall School and Worcester College, Oxford where he was president of the Oxford Union in 1925.After university he became a journalist on the "Daily News" (which became the "News Chronicle" in 1930 after a series of newspaper mergers), and practised the profession until entering government, despite occasional clashes with his employers because of the independent line he took in the internal clashes among Liberal factions in the late 1920s and early 1930s.