Frederic Thomas Greenhalge was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, U.K. on July 19, 1842, to William Greenhalgh and Jane (Slater) Greenhalgh. He was the only son (of seven children). His father, the supervisor of a printing operation, was descended from the Greenhalghs, a family of longstanding note in Lancashire. The family moved first to Eshton and then Edenfield, where the young Greenhalge (who would change the spelling of his name as an adult) attended private school. In 1855 the family immigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts, where the father had been offered a job heading the printing department of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company.