He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Oxford, which he left without a degree, but where he played rugby, narrowly missing a blue due to an ankle injury.
[2] Preston went into the family engineering business, and was a highly successful businessman.
He was chairman of one of the family's acquisitions, Platt Brothers, which provided machinery for most of the Lancashire cotton industry.
[2] Preston competed in the 1936 and 1952 Olympic Games, and was regarded as a major figure in the sailing of "big boats" in the 1950s.
[2] This biographical article related to sailing in United Kingdom is a stub.