He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a first class degree in modern history.
He was head of the Egyptian department in the Foreign Office 1931–1936 including four months in Cairo in 1934 as acting High Commissioner (during the absence of Sir Miles Lampson) when he was instrumental in resolving a political dispute in the Egyptian government which resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister, Abdel Fattah Yahya Ibrahim Pasha.
"[2] However, he remained in Iraq only until March 1939 when he was appointed ambassador to Spain,[3] then under the regime of Francisco Franco.
In the early days of the 1939–45 war he defended British interests with such persistence that he was officially congratulated by the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax,[4] yet in June 1940 he was recalled to London and served as Controller of Overseas Publicity in the Ministry of Information 1940–41 and as head of the Egyptian, eastern and far eastern departments of the Foreign Office 1942–44.
[6] In 1949 he retired from the Diplomatic Service due to illness, and was subsequently a director of Midland Bank.