Tracey joined the Royal Navy in 1852 and served in the Baltic Sea during the Crimean War.

[1] He took part in the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863 and the Shimonoseki Campaign in 1864 during the Late Tokugawa Shogunate conflicts.

[1] British diplomat Ernest Satow, appointed as interpreter to Admiral Kuper on board HMS Euryalus during the Shimonoseki Campaign, noted Tracey's "love of books" and his "wide knowledge of modern languages, acquired by dint of sheer perseverance amid all the nosiy distractions of life on board ship".

[2] At the request of the Bakamatsu Government and on the recommendation of the British Consul, Sir Harry Smith Parkes and Ernest Satow, Tracey was invited by them to assist in the organization of a naval training school at Tsukiji, Tokyo an institution that after the Meiji Restoration became the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy.

He went on to be Second-in-Command of the Channel Squadron in 1889,[3] Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard in 1892[4] and President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1897[5] He was placed on the retired list 24 January 1902.