He worked and travelled in North America from 1928 until 1930 when he joined the Coldstream Guards as an officer,[3] serving in Sudan and Egypt.

[4] In 1935 he resigned his commission to enter politics and was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Widnes in Lancashire.

[6] On the outbreak of the Second World War he rejoined the Army and travelled to France with the British Expeditionary Force.

[8] He left the Army again in 1942 and became a Civil Lord of the Admiralty, leading naval missions to India, Ceylon and Burma.

In 1951 he won election as Member of Parliament for Poole in Dorset,[10] a seat he held until his retirement from politics in 1964 after a car accident and the onset of Parkinson's disease.