Hugh King Ashby was born on 11 May 1911 at Bishopthorpe in Yorkshire, England, to Dr Edgar Ashby and Mrs Mary (née Thompson) Ashby. He had an older brother, Richard Thomson, and a younger sister, Rosamund Mary. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from St John’s College, Cambridge.

Ashby became a scientist in the Civil Service, Colonial Office, and was the State Agricultural Officer for Kelantan, Malaysia. In 1935, he was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the Hospital of St. John. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Ashby moved from Kelantan to Singapore and volunteered with the Straits Settlement Volunteer Force. When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, Ashby was captured as a prisoner of war and interned in camps at Changi, Bampong, Kanchanaburi, Chungkai and Ubon. During his time as a prisoner, he was a worker on the Burma-Thailand Railway and an assistant cook.

Upon his liberation in 1945, Ashby spent a brief time in England rehabilitating. He then returned Malaya to work with the Malayan Agricultural Service at Kuala Lumpur. On 8 August 1950, he married Birthe Rentse. They continued to live in Malaya, occasionally travelling to England for short periods of time, and had three sons. At an unknown point in time, the family moved back to England. Ashby was unable to talk about his wartime experience until he visited the Australian War Memorial in the 1980s. Hugh King Ashby died suddenly at his home in Oxford on 19 December 1987.