[1][5][3][4] He was both a councillor and alderman of the City of Port Adelaide, serving from 1916 to 1924, and was president of the Largs Bay Progressive Association.

[8] In March 1925, he was appointed to a three-year term as Agent-General in London by the Gunn government; he had previously been tipped as a potential minister.

[4][6][9] His resignation necessitated a 1925 by-election in Port Adelaide, which was won by Labor candidate John Stanley Verran.

[10] In 1928, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for Boothby, defeating sitting Nationalist Jack Duncan-Hughes.

However, UAP candidate Grenfell Price held the seat in the resulting by-election, although the government subsequently fell in August anyway.