He was born in 1912 in Kimberley, South Africa, when it was a British Dominion, and attended the University of the Witwatersrand, and later Balliol College, Oxford. After graduating, he travelled in Europe, and in the second world war served in the Army Intelligence Corps, stationed in the Middle East. After the war, he seemed to settle, becoming professor of English at Southampton University; but upon retiring he resumed travelling, taking visiting professorships in Jamaica, the United States and Yemen. Prince's life of travel, and his war-time experiences, bring to mind Basil Bunting; and while the two poets do not stylistically resemble one another, both have a formidable and highly individual understanding of British history, and both have learned much from Ezra Pound.