He returned to London where he worked as an illustrator before obtaining a position at the Lambeth School of Art where he taught artists such as Edmund Blampied.

While teaching at Lambeth he submitted pictures to the New English Art Club and became known as a painter in oils of romantic decorative landscapes with figures such as pierettes or birds.

[1] Although he was nearly 40 years old when the First World War broke out, Connard volunteered as a private, learned to ride, and fought in France as a member of a gun team in the Royal Field Artillery.

He was later appointed an official war artist to the Royal Navy and painted the surrender of the German ship SMS Goeben and the Zeebrugge raid.

Connard, meanwhile, did not forget his hometown: he was the founding President of The Southport Palette Club, established in 1921 to hold annual exhibitions of the work of local artists, and he retained this position until his death in 1958.