He was educated at Eton College and joined the family banking business, Beckett & Co, in Leeds.

[3] He was promoted Lieutenant in 1895[4] and Captain in 1898,[5] and resigned his commission in 1901[6] During the First World War he returned to service as Assistant Military Secretary of Northern Command from 1914[7] to 1916.

They had four daughters: Secondly he married Lady Marjorie Blanche Eva Greville, daughter of Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick and Frances Evelyn Maynard, on 1 November 1917.

Lady Greville was the widow of Charles Duncombe, 2nd Earl of Feversham, his first wife's brother.

This marriage produced one son: The publisher Sir Rupert Hart-Davis (1907-1999) was legally the son of stockbroker Richard Hart-Davis and his wife Sybil, daughter of the surgeon Sir Alfred Cooper; by the time of his conception, the Hart-Davises were estranged, and Sybil had numerous lovers at that period.