The son of Frederick Styles, he was educated at Eton and Exeter College, Oxford.
[1] At Oxford he rowed for Exeter with Geoffrey Fisher, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury.
[2] Styles was commissioned into the Royal West Kent Regiment before the First World War, during which he was promoted Captain and severely injured, to be invalided out of the service in 1918.
During the Second World War of 1939 to 1945 he commanded the local Battalion of the Home Guard, when he was given the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Royal Sussex Regiment.
At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Governing Body of the Lewes Grammar School for Boys.