He was born in West Melbourne, the son of a prosperous Scottish-born merchant, and worked in his father's business, eventually becoming sole proprietor and managing director of McPherson's, a leading machinery firm.

He was Treasurer in the Nationalist governments of John Bowser and Harry Lawson from 1917 to 1923, and developed a reputation as a very conservative manager of the state's finances.

In November 1928 he moved a vote of no confidence against Ned Hogan's minority Labor Party government, which had lost the support of the independent members who were keeping it in office, and as a result he became Premier.

His Cabinet included two bright young Nationalist politicians who were destined for higher things: Robert Menzies and Wilfrid Kent Hughes.

As a result of this and similar examples of unsustained government spending to buy off rural interest groups, Victoria by 1929 had amassed a public debt of over a million pounds, a huge amount at the time.