[1] Forbes was born in New Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of Agnes (Moir) and Robert Forbes, a storekeeper and tailor at Whitehill, one of their ten children.

In 1897, Forbes worked as a reporter and editorial writer with a local newspaper until 1901 when he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he worked on the Rand Daily Mail under its first editor, Edgar Wallace.

[3] He emigrated to New York City in the United States in 1904 where he was employed as a writer and financial editor at the Journal of Commerce before joining the Hearst chain of newspapers as a syndicated columnist in 1911.

After two years, he became the business and financial editor at Hearst's New York American, where he remained until 1916.

While living abroad, he returned to Buchan every two years, staying in the Cruden Bay Hotel, "to entertain people of Whitehill to a picnic".