James Lovelock

Alternate spelling of James E. Lovelock. James Lovelock was born in Letchworth Garden City to Tom Arthur Lovelock (1873–1957) and his second wife Nellie Annie Elizabeth née March (1887–1980). Nell, his mother, won a scholarship to a grammar school but was unable to take it up, and started work at 13 in a pickle factory. His father, Tom, had served six months hard labour for poaching in his teens and was illiterate until attending technical college, and later ran a book shop. Lovelock was brought up a Quaker and indoctrinated with the notion that "God is a still, small voice within rather than some mysterious old gentleman way out in the universe", which he thinks is a helpful way of thinking for inventors, but would eventually end up as being non-religious. The family moved to London, where his dislike of authority made him, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School. Lovelock could not at first afford to go to university, something which he believes helped prevent him becoming overspecialised and aided the development of Gaia theory.