Like his father, the younger Ashby attended the National School in Tysoe, but left just before he turned 12 to work with his father to help him farm, survey the land and carry out his religious and political activities. In 1909 he enrolled at Ruskin College, Oxford, as a Charles Buxton Scholar and, after two years of study, left with a diploma in economics and political science. In 1912, he received a scholarship from the Board of Agriculture and attended the Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics at Oxford and then the University of Wisconsin as an honorary fellow in political science.
