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Descended on one side from Canterbury immigrants of the fifties and on the other from immigrants of the Vogel boom period, E. H. McCormick was born in Taihape, of which town his father was one of the first settlers. Educated at the Taihape District High School, Wellington College, and Victoria University College, he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship which took him to Clare College, Cambridge. A schoolteacher before he went abroad, on his return he took up librarianship and held the posts of Acting City Librarian, Dunedin, and Hocken Librarian before being in 1936 appointed assistant to the Dominion Archivist. In 1937 he became secretary to the National Historical Committee and, two years later, editor of Centennial Publications. While in England Mr McCormick discovered he was a New Zealander, a fact that is plain from his intense interest in New Zealand literature and society.

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