A freemason, he was mayor of St Pancras in 1908,[1] and founded the printing and publishing company E. T. Heron and Co Ltd, at Tottenham Court Road, London and at Silver End, Essex.
Both parents died in 1879 and, in the care of three strict Baptist maiden aunts, he had a brief education at Dr Moore's Prep School, Marylebone Road, and Haberdashers' Aske's in Hoxton.
The following year, he left school at age 14 and was apprenticed to Faulding & Truslove Printers in Fulham.
In 1888, he started his own imprint at Westminster Press, 333 Harrow Road, publishing The Advertiser, which circulated in Paddington and Queen's Park.
He commenced publishing The Optical Magic Lantern and Photographic Enlarger (c. 1890),[3] Scott's Machinery Index (1902), The Talking Machine News (1903), The Music Dealer (1906), the Millinery Trade Journal (1906), the Violin Student (1906), The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly (renamed in 1907),[4] and Bowling and Curling (1908).