He graduated in 1938 from Dauntsey's School near Devizes, where he developed a life-long passion for cricket, and won a scholarship to study history at King's College, Cambridge.
In his first year of university (1938/9), he took the six-month Cours de Civilisation Française at the Sorbonne, where he met his future wife, a student from Kent.
[2][3] He returned in 1945 to King's College for his final year of undergraduate study and took a special subject course with David Knowles on St Francis of Assisi, having been impressed by the city in 1944.
[13][14] Throughout his career Waley gave priority to archival research and showed an inclination for dismantling myths through sober analysis rooted in the source material.
He ventured into modern history by publishing a study dissecting misconceptions around public opinion, which he started researching during his academic career, and in his later years a biography of a Liberal Imperialist.