He fought in France in the First World War and was severely wounded in combat on two occasions.
After the war, Purcell entered Trinity College, Cambridge under the veteran admissions scheme to study history.
He became particularly interested in the topic of Chinese education and in 1939 returned to Cambridge where he wrote a dissertation on the topic, drawing on his experiences among the Chinese community in Malaya, that was accepted for a Ph.D.[3] He returned to Southeast Asia during the Second World War and was involved in information and publicity.
From 1949 he lectured in Far Eastern History at Cambridge University and gained the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Litt.D (Cantab.)
During this period he published a mock epic poem The Sweeniad under the pseudonym Myra Buttle (Secker & Warburg 1958), which parodied the style of T. S. Eliot and which was subject to a long, mostly favorable article by the eminent American man of letters Edmund Wilson.