 One of eleven children, he was the second son of William Newbold (1828–1900) and Eleanor Isabel Newbold, née Fergusson (1862–1942) of East Grinstead, and was educated at Rose Hill in Tunbridge Wells and then Uppingham School.He entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1900 and was awarded his BA in 1903.On leaving Cambridge in 1904 he joined brewing firm Guinness, becoming one of their early chemists at the Guinness Research Laboratory.