 He moved to Hanover, Germany, with his family in 1882 when his father was appointed consul to Hanover.The next year, his father murdered his mother and tried to kill himself, then was admitted to an asylum for the criminally insane in Hildesheim; Henry and his siblings were returned to the United States to be raised by their uncle, William Harris.Rathbone graduated from Phillips Academy in 1888, from Yale University in 1892, and from the Law Department at the University of Wisconsin in 1894, after which he commenced practicing law in Chicago.