Born into a long-established Bedfordshire family, Wade-Gery was educated at Winchester College, a contemporary of Arnold J. Toynbee and R.M.Y.
Almost immediately however he left for military service in the First World War in the army on the Western Front, during which he was awarded the MC.
He retired from his Chair in 1953 and was offered a five-year Research Fellowship at Merton College, two years of which he spent at Princeton.
After his safe return from the war he published "Terpsichore and Other Poems", a collection of his poetry, in 1922, but future publications were devoted to his academic work and especially to epigraphy.
He is often cited by classical scholars for his suggestion that the Greek alphabet was adapted from Phoenician script in the 8th century BC with the express purpose of recording Homer's monumental epics.