William Ritchie Sorley was born in Selkirk, Scotland, the son of Anna Ritchie and William Sorley, a Free Church of Scotland minister. He was educated first at the University of Edinburgh, where he took a degree in philosophy and mathematics. This was followed by New College, Edinburgh where he studied theology with the intention of training for the church.[1] He gave this up, and after winning the Shaw Fellowship he spent a year at Trinity College, Cambridge where he took Part II of the Moral Sciences Tripos.[2] He subsequently spent several years at Cambridge where he was lecturer and in 1883 he was elected a Fellow at Trinity.