He was born in London and married Emma Mitchell in 1858.
In 1863 they emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Auckland, however Emma died in 1867.
The 1874 transit of Venus awakened his interest in astronomy, which he pursued full-time starting in 1894.
He began systematic searches for comets in that year.
Wayne Orchiston, John Grigg, and the genesis of cometary astronomy in New Zealand, JBAA 103 (1993), 67 [1]