[2]He was born into an ecclesiastical family[3] on 11 May 1906 and educated at Monkton Combe School[4] and Balliol College, Oxford, where he met his future brother-in-law Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor through the Balliol Boys' Club, of which they were successively president.
His first post was as a Curate at Penistone after which he was Padre to the Tanker Fleet of the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company and then Vicar of Forest Row.
When World War II came he enlisted as a Chaplain in the RNVR during which he served on HMS Norfolk and was decorated twice for gallantry - in successful engagements against the German battleships Bismarck (in 1941) and Scharnhorst (in 1943).
When peace returned he was Vicar of Rogate (1946–54) and Rural Dean of Midhurst (1950–54) before his elevation to the Deanery.
He was married twice: in 1936 to Agnes Elisabeth (Betty) Butler (who died in 1981) and in 1987 to Diana Goschen (who survived him).