He was educated at Lymington and enlisted in 1868 as a cadet in the Royal Navy, where he joined the training ship HMS Britannia.

Made captain in 1895,[4] he was given command of HMS Penguin and commissioned to survey islands in the south west Pacific (1896–99).

[7] For the next few years, he worked taking depth soundings in home waters, based on the survey vessel HMS Research.

He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1911 Coronation Honours,[11] and advanced to the rank of admiral on the Retired List on 4 June 1913.

His son, Midshipman T. M. Field, was killed in the battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.