Early Life
Firth was born in Grayshott, Hampshire. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College, Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching.
He lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11. He later attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School), which at the time was a state secondary modern school in Winchester, Hampshire. Reflecting on his time at Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, he said "My two years at Barton Peveril were among the two happiest years of my life".
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