He was educated at Oundle School and St Andrews University where he studied zoology.
He moved to Nigeria in 1940 to work for the Colonial Agricultural Service and then to Kenya in 1946 where he lived for the rest of his life.
[4] Following his retirement in 1963, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1964 New Year Honours,[5] for services to agriculture.
While working as an agriculturalist he made time for a large amount of field ornithological research, especially on eagles, pelicans and flamingos, which resulted in a number of scientific papers and several books.
Along with several books, including British Birds of Prey in the Collins New Naturalist series, he wrote the Encyclopædia Britannica entry on the Falconiforms.