William S. Heckscher
From 1918 to 1921, the family lived in the Netherlands while Heckscher's father served as the Weimar Republic's ambassador to The Hague; there, Heckscher enrolled at the Nederlandsch Lyceum. Heckscher pursued his interests in history and Flemish art by spending his off hours studying at the Dutch Royal Library, the Mauritshuis and the Kröller-Müller Museum, but was dismissed from the Lyceum in 1920 for "lack of scholarly potential". After the family returned to Hamburg, Heckscher attended the city's Kunstgewerbeschule, now the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, but failed a class in ceramics.
Ellice Horsburgh
He then went to the University of Edinburgh where he graduated MA BSc in engineering in 1897. He gained a further BSc in mathematics and natural philosophy (physics) in 1899. He began lecturing in electrical engineering at Leith Technical College around 1900. In 1903 he moved to the University of Edinburgh.