John was born on 27 April 1921, the Stotts’ fourth child and first son. His father had grown up in Bolton, outside Manchester, in the north of England, where John’s grandfather owned a cotton mill.
Baby John was baptized shortly after the family moved to Harley Street, in nearby Marylebone Church. His full name was John Robert Walmsley Stott, after his paternal grandfather, John Robert Stott, with the addition of Walmsley from Lily’s family line.
John’s father, Arnold Stott, was a heart specialist. It is still said in the Stott family that the first words John ever spoke were ‘coronary thrombosis’. We will never know if that’s true.
