Thurlow was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated to Master of Arts (M.A.).
[4] Thurlow was a civil servant at the Department of Agriculture in Scotland from 1935–37 and through the period of World War II was secretary at the British High Commission in New Zealand 1939-44 and in Canada 1944–45.
He became adviser to the Governor of the Gold Coast in 1955; when that colony became independent as Ghana in 1957 he was appointed Britain's first Deputy High Commissioner there, moving on to become Deputy High Commissioner in Canada in 1959.
[5] After retiring from the service he was appointed chairman of the Institute of Comparative Study of History, Philosophy and the Sciences in 1975.
[4] Thurlow's younger identical twin brother Sir Roualeyn Cumming-Bruce, PC, was a Judge of the High Court of Justice and a Lord Justice of Appeal.