 Hugh Edward Lance Falkus was born to James Falkus, a Surrey bank manager, and his wife Alice Maud.James retired early to a boat, first on the Essex marshes and then in Devon, upon which Hugh was sent to the East Anglian School, in Suffolk.According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Hugh caught his first fish when he was four, learned to shoot when he was six, and was an expert helmsman by the age of fifteen.