Hewish attended Kings College, Taunton. His undergraduate degree, at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, was interrupted by the Second World War. He was assigned to war service at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and at the Telecommunications Research Establishment where he worked with Martin Ryle. Returning to the University of Cambridge in 1946, Hewish completed his undergraduate degree and became a postgraduate student in Ryles research team at the Cavendish Laboratory. For his PhD thesis, awarded in 1952, Hewish made practical and theoretical advances in the observation and exploitation of the scintillations of astronomical radio sources, due to foreground plasma.