Born in Cane Grove, Demerara, he attended Queens College, Georgetown (then British Guiana)[1] From 1939 to 1945, during the Second World War, he studied and taught law in London.
In 1944, he became involved in a case of an African-American soldier serving in Britain who had been condemned to death for rape by a US military court.
From 1970 to 1976, he was High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, based in London, and was concurrently accredited in Paris (France), Bonn (West Germany), Moscow (Soviet Union) and Belgrade (Yugoslavia).
While he was High Commissioner in London, the government of Forbes Burnham nationalised a sugar company from Booker Group.
In 1983, he settled with his second wife, Sara Lou Harris from North Carolina, in Washington, D.C.. She had worked as an educator and groundbreaking model and actress.