John Cairncross was born on July 25th, 1913 in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, Scotland to Alexander Cairncross, an iron monger (someone who sells iron or tools), and Elizabeth Wishart, a schoolteacher (Simkin, 1997). Cairncross, who was the youngest of eight children, was educated at Lesmahagow's village school before attending Hamilton Academy for prep and senior schooling (Simkin, 1997). After graduating from Hamilton Academy, Cairncross attended the University of Glasgow to study German and French on a scholarship he had earned at the age of seventeen. He later attended the Sorbonne in Paris and Trinity College at Cambridge to study modern languages (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2014).