 Educated at the Methodist Kingswood School, he rebelled by becoming a Communist for a period in his youth, but gained a scholarship to study Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford University; he then served for five years in the army during the Second World War.After returning to Oxford, where he gained a first class degree in PPE in 1947, he was persuaded by G. D. H. Cole to take up the study of industrial relations.He became a fellow of Nuffield College in 1949.