He won a scholarship to University High School, Melbourne, and then worked as a typewriter salesman, shorthand writer, and clerk at the University of Melbourne, before going into business, becoming part-owner of two companies, and founding and editing Australian Golfer (being an outstanding golfer himself).
In November 1916 Deane was appointed private secretary to Prime Minister Billy Hughes.
He was secretary to the Australian delegation to the Versailles Conference, for which he was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours,[1] and to the Australian delegations to the Imperial Conferences of 1921 and 1926.
From 1932 until his retirement on medical grounds (with myocarditis) in 1936, he was a member of the War Pensions Entitlement Appeals Tribunal.
[2] In his retirement, Deane broke his hip in a street-fall and became bedridden, eventually dying of cancer on 17 August 1946 at the age of 56.