[citation needed] He was brought up and was educated at Rugby, and he was a member of the British Army in World War I.

[1] In 1919, he became steward for a British steamship line whose ships, such as the Vauban and the Calamares, which he had worked on, frequently called at the Port of New York.

With an imposing six-foot height, stocky build, and perhaps due to his uncomfortable resemblance to veteran film bad guy Oskar Homolka, "Harry the Henchman" usually portrayed thugs, villains' henchmen and policemen.

[2] Cording's most notable roles were probably as the villainous Dickon Malbete, Captain of the Guard in Errol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood and as Thamal, the hulking henchman to Bela Lugosi's character in 1934's Black Cat.

As a contract player at Universal Pictures in the 1940s, he turned up in tiny parts in many of their horror films, such as The Wolf Man.