Ordained deacon in 1863 and priest the following year, he served successively the curacies of St James, Wednesbury (1863–5), of Sedgeley (1865–7), and of Christ Church, Wolverhampton (1867–70).
In these places he sought to bring the teaching of the tractarian movement home to the working classes and rapidly made a reputation as a mission preacher.
Nominated rector of Kirby Misperton, Yorkshire, in 1870, he took an active part in the parochial mission movement.
B. Lightfoot, bishop of the diocese, and for twenty-eight years carried on fruitful mission work among the Durham miners.
He was proctor in convocation for Cleveland from 1880 to 1885, and for Durham in 1906, vice-president of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1890), and warden of the Community of the Epiphany, Truro (1891–1905).
He collected large sums for mission work, and, according to biographer Gabriel Stanley Woods, his "sermons were remarkable for the directness and sincerity of their appeal".
Two portraits were made of Body: a miniature painted by Mrs. Boyd and a black-and-white drawing by Lady Jane Lindsey.