Bora Nevil Shute Norway, Shute was born on January 17, 1899, in a suburb of London, England. His father, Arthur Hamilton Norway, was the assistant secretary of the General Post Office in London. In 1912 his father was appointed head of the post office in Ireland. After moving to Dublin, Shute was sent to the Shrewsbury School in Oxford; in the summer, he stayed with his family in the countryside near Dublin.

In 1915, Shute's only brother, nineteen-year-old Fred, died in France during World War I. A short time later, Shute served as a stretcher-bearer during the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland. During the fighting, Irish rebels occupied and burned his father's post office. He entered the Royal Military Academy and trained for several months to become a gunnery officer for the Royal Flying Corps, but a childhood stammer prevented him from getting a commission. Desperate to fight for England, he...