C. B. Fry was born in
Croydon; the son of a civil servant. Both sides of his family had once been wealthy, but by 1872 were not as prosperous. After winning a scholarship, Fry was educated at
Repton School and then at
Wadham College, Oxford. His greatest strength academically was in the Classics. At Repton he won the school prizes for Latin Verse, Greek Verse, Latin Prose and surprisingly, French. He was also runner-up in German. His weakest subject was mathematics; he gained the headmaster's permission to study
Thucydides instead and dispensed with maths for the rest of his academic career.