In 1911, Herring entered Trinity College, the Church of England residential college at the University of Melbourne, where he played cricket and tennis. In 1912, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in England. There, he joined the Officers Training Corps in 1913. In November of that year he enlisted as a trooper in King Edward's Horse, a cavalry unit in the British Army.Sayers, Ned Herring, pp. 20–26, 35.
