A year following his graduation he became an assistant at the Khedivial Astronomical Observatory in Helwan, Egypt.

He performed welfare work for the British army during World War I, and was awarded the Order of the Nile, Class 4.

Much of his labor during the following years was then spent in production of the Radcliffe Catalogue of Proper Motions, published in 1934.

His dissatisfaction with the observing conditions in England led him to lobby funds for a site in South Africa.

He married Maisie (née Weir of Pretoria) and the couple had one son, Peter, who was born in 1944.