[1] He studied at King's College School, London, before training in the office of engineer R. W. Mylne.
According to Professor A. C. Ramsay, who was director for England and Wales, De Rance was able to "survey a large tract with the skill of an old geologist".
[1] De Rance's early papers on the Gault of Folkestone[2] and on the Cretaceous strata in England's southwest appeared in Geological Magazine in 1868 and 1874.
[1] Also in 1875, he had published Memoirs of the Geological Survey of England and Wales for Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
[1][5] De Rance resigned from the Geological Survey in 1898, but maintained a private practice in Blackpool as a consulting mining and water engineer.