He was head boy at King Edward VII Grammar School there and graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1911.
[citation needed] He trained for Holy Orders at Bishop's Hostel, Liverpool and was ordained deacon in 1912, and priest in 1913 .
It seemed to the pupils that the volunteers emerged unscathed, whereas the headmaster, despite cloaking himself in hats and veils, always managed to get stung.
The puzzles of Afrit [2] (his pen name, a powerful demon of Arabian mythology, which happened to be hidden in his initials and surname) first appeared in The Sketch and The Listener.
At The Listener he created several enduring formats of variety puzzle, including the popular Playfair and Printer's Devilry types.