Planché was educated at home until the age of eight by his mother (who had written a treatise on education). He was then sent to boarding school where, in his words: ""I was "im"perfected, and "un"taught the French I spoke fluently as a child."" In 1808 he was apprenticed to a French landscape painter, Monsieur de Court, however this was curtailed by the latter's death two years later. Planché was then articled as an apprentice to a bookseller, with the hope that this would also give him the opportunity to sell some of his own writings.