He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford and qualified as a solicitor, becoming a junior partner with Riddell, Vaizey and Smith in London.
After inheriting the estates of his uncle, Colonel John Morgan of Brecon, he retired from the law and returned home to Wales to administer them.
He was commissioned into the 3rd (Royal South Wales Borderers Militia) Battalion, South Wales Borderers in 1891, and was promoted lieutenant in 1893 and captain in 1907.
During the First World War he returned to his regiment to command a musketry training camp in Pembrokeshire, retiring with the rank of major.
He changed his surname to the hyphenated Hughes-Morgan by deed poll in 1925.