 He was a twin, born at the same time as his sister Angela.Poett was the son of Julia Baldwin and Major General Joseph Howard Poett, who saw service in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the Boer War, and was commanding the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment in British India when Poett was born.Shortly after his birth, Poett's family moved to India to join his father, and then in 1910 they moved, this time to Canada, where his father hoped to take up a new career in farming.