[6] Boase studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1919 to 1921.
He fought on the Western Front during World War I in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (1917–19) and was awarded the Military Cross.
During World War II, he worked in the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, followed by the RAF in Cairo, Egypt, from 1939 to 1941.
He was then in charge of British Council activities in the Middle East, also based in Cairo, from 1943 to 1945.
[8] While at the Courtauld he contributed photographs that are now held in the Conway Library of art and architecture.