 Hirons was of French extraction; he immigrated to Massachusetts as a child.Hirons worked as a draftsman in the Boston architectural office of Herbert Hale from 1898 until 1901, before entering the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; on graduating in 1904 he received a Rotch Travelling Scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.MIT's Paris prize enabled him to continue his European studies until 1909.