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LANCELOT LAW WHYTE (1896–1972) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the youngest son of Dr. Alexander Whyte, a renowned Presbyterian minister and preacher. He was educated at Bedales School, England, and from there went, in 1915, to fight in France instead of taking up his scholarship at University. After World War I he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied under Rutherford, and later entered Göttingen, Germany.
After graduating, L. L. Whyte went into industry and banking, except for one year (1929–1930) which he spent in Berlin on a Rockefeller grant and where he met Albert Einstein for the first time. In 1935 he met Sir Frank Whittle, and it was that combination of his qualities—"philosopher, scientist, banker"—which led him to recognize the potential of the inventor and of the jet engine, and to guide the project of its development through its initial difficulties to triumphal first flight.
The years of Hitler's rise and of the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia saw L. L. Whyte deeply involved in militant, anti-Fascist activity in London, true to a Whyte family tradition of