He served in the Royal Navy during World War I. Additionally, he was the first cousin of the English writer Daphne du Maurier.

Shortly before writing the play, Barrie created a photo book titled The Boy Castaways, featuring the three oldest brothers pretending to be shipwrecked on an island and fighting pirates, themes that later appeared in the Peter Pan story.

Nonetheless, Barrie gave the couple charge of the Davies family house, where Michael and Nico still lived during school holidays, in the care of Mary Hodgson.

During the late 1940s, his brother Peter, a publisher, consulted with him regarding details of a family history informally titled "The Morgue".

In the 1978 BBC mini-series The Lost Boys, he was portrayed at various ages by Nicholas Borton, Guy Hewitt, David Wilson, and Osmund Bullock.