Bernhard Riemann was the second child in a family of six children. His father was a Lutheran pastor. The family was very poor and did not have much to eat. Several of the children died, and Bernhard always had poor health. His parents were loving, but he was a very shy boy. Later in life he had to try very hard to be brave enough to speak in public. His father was one of his first teachers. The young boy was very keen to learn about everything. When he was ten he had a specialist maths teacher, but he was often better at maths than his teacher. When he was 14, he went to Hanover where he lived with his grandmother so that he could go to a Gymnasium school. His father wanted him to be a priest, but Bernhard was much too shy to preach to people. In the end he let him study maths.