He attended Calday Grange Grammar School and at 16, worked at Post Office Telephones.

In 1947, Venables earned a government grant to study psychology at University College London (UCL), graduating in 1951.

[2] He retired in 1988 to become Emeritus Professor at the University of York,[3] where he continued to research.

[1] His awards included one for Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology (U.S., Society for Psychophysiological Research, 1987), the Zubin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Discipline from the Society for Research in Psychopathology (U.S., 1990), Honorary Membership of the Experimental Psychology Society (UK, 1993), an award from the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience for Outstanding Contributions to British Psychophysiology (UK, 2009), and most recently the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge (British Psychological Society, 2014).

[5] In 1948, Venable married Agnes "Ness" Hawkins (d. 2010), whom he had met during his time in the navy.