 His father was a solicitor and the family was of upper class origins, dating back to ancestors in the former county of Alost (now Alst, in present-day Belgium) including Pietr Damant, Bishop of Ghent, whose tomb can be found there in St Bravos Cathedral.Damant attended a boarding school called the Grange upon the Isle of Wight and later became a naval cadet aboard HMS "Britannia".He married Eleanor May Brook on 23 July 1913 and had three children