He was appointed as Recorder, or part-time judge, of Bury St Edmunds in 1905, a position he held until 1943.
[2] In 1892 he first stood for parliament, contesting South Leeds, where he continued as the Conservative and Unionist candidate at the general elections of 1895 and 1900, and at a by-election in 1908.
He lost this seat back to the Labour Party in December 1918 (a so-called "Khaki election"), and in 1923 stood unsuccessfully in South Leeds again, meeting his fifth defeat there.
He was then selected as Unionist candidate for East Norfolk, where he was successful at the 1924 election, holding the seat until 1929.
He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his elder son, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Edmund Henderson Neville, 2nd Baronet MC, author of The War Letters of a Light Infantryman (1931), who also wrote under the pen-name of 'Gaid Sakit'.