page_title: Desmond Lee
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Desmond Lee / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Repton School through The Arch
context_page_description: Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee, known as Desmond Lee, was an English classical scholar specialising in ancient philosophy who became a Fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University, a lecturer in the university, and then Headmaster successively of Clifton College and Winchester College, before ending his career back at Cambridge University as President of Hughes Hall.
context_section_description: Born in Nottingham, the son of the Rev. Canon Henry Burgass Lee, the young Lee was educated at Arden House, then at Repton School, where he held the George Denman scholarship, before going on to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was again a scholar and gained a Double First, with Firsts in Part 1 of the Classical Tripos in 1928 and in Part 2 in 1930. He also gained a Charles Oldham scholarship.
  While he was still an undergraduate at Cambridge, Lee became a friend of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), in 1930 staying with the Wittgenstein family in Austria. Many years later, in editing Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge, 1930–1932, Lee wrote an account of their friendship, which came to an end after the focus of Lee's academic career turned to ancient philosophy. His other friends during this period included William Empson.
caption: Repton School
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