He worked as an engineer and manager (at Tewgoed (or 'Terrgoed') Colliery at Cwmavon); then underground surveyor to William Chambers of Llanelli; and finally, at Abercrave colliery, iron works, iron mines, and limestone quarries while maintaining an active interest in natural history, especially botany (he left a herbarium at the Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea), and folklore.
[6] After the family hit substantial financial problems, he went out to Labuan in 1849 to pioneer coal mining and other enterprises for the Eastern Archipelago Company.
He did not have a good relationship with the other naturalist in Labuan at the time, Hugh Low, but he corresponded with some eminent geologists (including Sir Henry De la Beche who had recommended him for the job in Labuan) and botanists, especially William Jackson Hooker at Kew Gardens,[7] and William Mitten; in Swansea, Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn arranged publication of a natural history book.
[9] He left the Eastern Archipelago Company in acrimonious circumstances in 1853 but, after some time in Singapore (where he produced plans for drainage work) and exploring the coast of Sumatra, he obtained a similar job as superintendent of the private Julia Hermina coal mine at Kalangan (or Bangkal), south-east of Banjarmasin in South Eastern Borneo where he, his wife, two daughters, and a son made good progress until a local uprising at the start of the Bandjermasin War cost their lives, along with all the other Europeans living in the area.
Had he lived longer it is arguable that he might have been comparable to his near contemporary in both South Wales and Borneo, Alfred Russel Wallace.