Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Alfred Norwell a Commercial Clerk, born 1865 in Leicester, and his wife Clara Ann, born 1861 in Rothwell, Northamptonshire. Herbert, born 1898 in Leicester, had two siblings Francis Allan, born 1891 and Hugh, born 1894, like Herbert they were also born in Leicester. At the time of the 1911 Census the family resided at 5, Glossop Street, Leicester. On the 31st January 1920 the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester published a Roll of Honour in which Herbert is shown to have been a pupil at the school between the years 1908 and 1915.