David Llewellyn Snodgrove was born in Hampshire and educated at Christ's Hospital, Horsham, and Southampton University. Snodgrove served in the Royal Engineers in the Second World War from 1941, being posted to India in 1943. A few months after beginning his posting he contracted malaria and was sent to the military hospital at Lebong, just north of Darjeeling. It was while he was at Lebong that he purchased some books about Tibet which sparked his interest in the country. After the war, unable to find any university that would teach Tibetan, he gained entry to Queens' College, Cambridge to study Sanskrit and Pali. In 1950, he began teaching Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. Snellgrove's research subsequent to his retirement was focused increasingly upon the art history of South East Asia, spending half his year in Cambodia and the other half in Italy. He died in Italy in 2016.