Frederick May

Frederick May (1921–1976) was the foundation professor of Italian at the University of Sydney. Early life and education May was born in the suburb of Kensington in London, England, on 3 August 1921. His parents were John May, a labourer, and his wife, Elizabeth Ann (née Owens). He attended the Quintin School in St John's Wood, North London and then, from 1940, the University of London, from which he would graduate in 1947. In 1940 he married Heather Constance Armstrong, a typist. In the early years of World War II May and his wife, who were both conscientious objectors, performed voluntary work with the Quakers's War Relief Service in Devon. From 1943 he worked as a hospital porter in Cambridge and a hospital theatre orderly in London.