His parents were Donald Nicholson, a cashier, and Euphemia Scott, née Gibb, who had at one time run a private school in Aberdeen, Scotland.

The family emigrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in February 1884 and settling in Launceston, Tasmania[4] in April of that year.

[4] Having matriculated from secondary school and won a Lithgow Scholarship in modern languages (French and German) in 1896,[5] George Nicholson studied at the University of Sydney from which he graduated in 1899, achieving first-class honours in English, French and German and receiving the University Medal, Professor Anderson's prize and Professor McCallum's prize for English.

In 1903 Nicholson returned to Australia and was appointed assistant lecturer in French and German at the University of Sydney in the department headed by Professor Mungo William MacCallum.

[7] Nicholson was an "exacting" teacher[8] who was known for enforcing academic rigour, a habit that some have interpreted as shading into "linguistic pedantry".

Once he became a professor, he continued to emphasise accurate pronunciation and regular contact with the living language via native speakers of French.

[7] Nicholson was vocal in publicly advocating for higher educational standards at all levels[9] and in calling for more resources and staff in the modern languages section of the teachers colleges.

This included a successful call in 1922 for French government scholarships which would enable Sydney University "students to travel to Paris ... to continue their studies".