Hubert Thorn Gooding was born in 1903 in Devon. While still a child, Gooding’s father, a farmer, died and the family went to live with Gooding’s grandparents. The family later lived in St Albans where Gooding attended Hatfield School. In 1915 he won a scholarship to St Albans Grammar School. He left the Grammar School in 1917, at the age of 14, to work as a messenger boy. Gooding attended evening classes in St Albans after work.

In 1918, Gooding moved to Belvedere, Kent, where, from 1920-1935, he worked for Callender's Cable and Construction Co in the Testing Department. He eventually became Chief Testing Engineer for British Insulated Callender's Cables (BICC).

Within the company he became known as "High Tension Gooding", a play on his initials, and became respected for the work he carried out in finding a way to detect faults on high tension cables. The work carried out by Gooding enabled the electricity supply industry to detect faults in cable already laid, for example in streets and in coal mines, without having to dig up lengths of cable. This work was of importance to the maintenance of the National Grid and was recognised by individuals and power generation companies involved in the electricity supply industry.

Gooding retired from BICC in 1965.