On leaving school (Christ's College, 1910–1912) D'Arcy joined the Christchurch architectural firm of Collins and Harman.

In mid-1914 Cresswell went to London to undertake further studies at the Architectural Association, and in early 1915 enlisted as a private in the British Army and joined the Middlesex Regiment.

[1] In 1921, Cresswell returned to London, where he spent most of the rest of his life, although he retained his New Zealand links and made several trips back home.

[1] Of Cresswell, John Newton has said, "He is not remotely the poet he believed himself to be, and, judged on his verse alone, would long have been forgotten," but he added: "He remains, however, one of New Zealand literature's outstanding identities.

"[3] The critic Bart Sutherland, writing in 1931 in The New Zealand Herald, said of Cresswell's autobiographical book The Poet's Progress (1930): "to the initiate, [it] is surely the most beautiful creation in our literature, though it would probably be labelled by the man in the street as the work of a harmless lunatic".