Patton grew up in Belfast, where he attended the Templemore Avenue School.
He worked at Harland and Wolff for twenty-nine years from 1932, when he moved to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
He retired in 1982, but continued to sit on the council, serving as Lord Mayor of Belfast that year.
[1] Patton has been described by journalist Jim McDowell as an example of a "cornerstone of what the unionist working class vote was".
[2] Sinn Féin councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir notes Patton's malapropisms, giving an example of "the police are no detergent against the IRA".