Stuart went on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He won the Colquhoun Sculls, and his Trinity Hall crew was head of the river in 1907. He stroked three successive Cambridge crews to victory in 1906, 1907 and 1908.[2] He was the strokeman of the Cambridge University boat in the eights, which won the bronze medal for Great Britain rowing at the 1908 Summer Olympics.[4] In 1909 his Trinity Hall crew were again Head of the River. He was president of the C.U.B.C. in 1909, but the crew lost to Oxford that year.
Stuart became a solicitor after taking a third class in the 1909 law Tripos.[2] In the First World War, he served with the First Battalion of the Border Regiment[5] and was badly wounded as a second lieutenant in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.[6][7] He later served as a captain in the Courts Martial.[8] In 1920 he was appointed assistant chief clerk in the Solicitor's Department at the Inland Revenue.[9]