Ordained in 1860, he became part of the staff of St Philip's Church, Clerkenwell, under Warwick Reed Wroth.
[5] In 1881, his health forced him to return to England,[2] where from July 1881 – 1899 he was Rector of Sibstone;[6][7] Assistant Bishop of Peterborough, August 1881 – November 1900[7][8] (he "administered the See", i.e. temporarily acted up as Bishop of Peterborough, for a short time during Edward Carr Glyn's illness);[2] and Archdeacon of Leicester, 1886–1899.
[9] During the 1885 vacancy in the See of Manchester, he served as the Archbishop of York's episcopal commissary in that diocese — effectively its acting diocesan bishop.
[2] The mastership brought with it an ex officio canonry of Gloucester Cathedral,[9] in which diocese he also undertook some limited episcopal duties.
[11] He had a reputation as an antiquary, and visited all the monastic ruins in England and Wales, assembling an extensive collection of photographs and drawings of them which is now kept by the Bodleian library.