He studied at Bristol Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, gaining a degree in classics in 1914.
[1] He had joined the Territorial Force on 17 September 1910 when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 4th (City of Bristol) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, having previously risen to the rank of cadet colour-sergeant in his school's Officers' Training Corps unit.
[3] Called up on the embodiment of the Territorial Force on the outbreak of the First World War, he served with 1/4th Battalion in France from 31 March 1915.
[1][7] He stepped down as adjutant on 18 May 1917,[8] and was then allowed to take up an appointment as a civil servant with the Local Government Board, later the Ministry of Health.
[1] He was knighted in the 1954 New Year Honours, receiving the accolade from the Queen Mother at Buckingham Palace on 19 February.