He was born in London and attended Tonbridge School for two years before being educated by private tutors.
His father was a wealthy linen draper and silk mercer who owned a house in London and Brathay Hall in the Lake District where he employed architect Alfred Waterhouse in the mid-1850s.
He started an independent practice in Manchester in the late 1860s and in 1869 had an office in the Royal Insurance Buildings in King Street.
Waterhouse proposed him as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1872 and as a fellow in 1877.
[1] Among his commissions in Manchester were the Neo-Gothic St Andrew's Chambers on the corner of Albert Square built in 1874 for Scottish Widows Life Assurance Society[2] and the Manchester School of Art in Cavendish Street built in 1880-1 also in the Neo-Gothic style.