[1][2] Ordained deacon in 1846 and priest in 1847, Freeman held a curacy at Geddington, Northamptonshire, from 1846 to 1854, and the perpetual cure of Emmanuel Church, Bolton-le-Moors, from 1854 to 1856.

He was then incumbent of Macclesfield Forest with Clough, Cheshire, till 1889, when he became vicar of Askham, near Penrith, and private chaplain to the Earl of Lonsdale.

In Northamptonshire he enjoyed his first experience with a kestrel-hawk, equipped with a hood of home manufacture, and he afterwards flew sparrowhawks, merlins and peregrine falcons at pigeons and larks.

[1] In later life Freeman wrote four Seatonian Prizes for his poems: The Transfiguration (1882), Jericho (1888), Damascus (1893), and The Broad and the Narrow Way (1894).

He also published Five Christmas Poems (1860, reprinted from The Field, with additions, and Mount Carmel, a Story of English Life (1867).