Lancelot Hogben's Biography

Lancelot Hogben was born in Southsea in 1895.

A scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, Hogben became a biologist and was a professor in South Africa, USA, London and Aberdeen.

Before he had graduated from Trinity, at the time of the First World War, Lancelot Hogben enrolled as an ambulanceman, but when conscription was introduced he gave up his post and, in protest, became a conscientious objector and was consequently imprisoned.

Hogben was an all-rounder who wrote on many subjects. His works included Interglossa (a new world language like Esperanto), Mathematics for the Million and Science for the Citizen, which was subtitled a self-educator based on the social background of scientific discovery.

Originally published in 1938, in his foreword to the second edition in 1940 Hogben wrote:

"Science for the Citizen is partly written for the large and growing number of intelligent adults who realize that the Impact of Science on Society is now the focus of genuinely constructive social effort. It is also written for the large and growing number of adolescents, who realize that they will be the first victims of the new destructive powers of science misapplied ..."

H G Wells described Hogben's Mathematics for the Million as 'a great book, a book of first-class importance.'

Lancelot Hogben was married to Enid Charles, the statistician, and had four children. They divorced and in 1957, he married a retired headmistress, Sarah Jane Roberts.

Hogben died in Wrexham on 22 August 1975.