 The elder son of F. D. Lys, of Highclere, Weymouth, Lys was educated at Sherborne School and Worcester College, Oxford, where he was a Scholar.He gained a first Class in Classical Honour Moderations in 1884, won the Chancellor's Prize for Latin Verse in 1885, and took a Second in Literae Humaniores in 1886.Lys was briefly an assistant master at Radley College from 1887 to 1888 before returning to Worcester in 1889 as a Lecturer.