He also suggested the plot of The Railway Children, and her book The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) is dedicated to him, "in memory of childhoods identical but for the accidents of time and space".
[citation needed] From this venture, he moved to the Victoria County History, where he contributed on matters on heraldry and genealogy.
He also contributed a major article on heraldry to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which according to John Campbell-Kease in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography remains "one of the best and most erudite introductions to the subject".
However, the demands of his daily column for the Evening News, on which he depended for his living, kept him away from any sustained work of scholastic endeavour, despite the high quality of his periodical contributions.
[citation needed] He was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1901, was appointed gold staff officer at the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911, served as Lieutenant in the Inns of Court Reserve Corps 1916–1919, and attended at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937 by virtue of his appointment as Maltravers Herald.