 Born in London in 1871, the eldest child of Walter Stennett Prichard (a solicitor) and his wife Lucy, Harold Prichard attended Clifton College in Bristol and was admitted to New College, Oxford to study mathematics. But after taking First Class honours in mathematical moderations (preliminary examinations) in 1891, he studied Greats (ancient history and philosophy) taking First Class Honours in 1894. He also played tennis for Oxford against Cambridge. On leaving Oxford he spent a brief period working for a firm of solicitors in London, before returning to Oxford where he spent the rest of his life, first as Fellow of Hertford College (1895–8) and then of Trinity College (1898–1924). He took early retirement from Trinity in 1924 on grounds of temporary ill-health, but recovered and was elected to the White’s Professorship of Moral Philosophy in 1928. He retired in 1937 and died in 1947.