A prominent Methodist layman and a banker from Southport and Bournemouth, he was born in Manchester on 6 December 1882. He held a number of lay offices, including on the executive of the Wesley Guild, and was for many years a member of Conference. He represented British Methodism at the Ecumenical Methodist Conference at Springfield, Mass, in 1947 and was awarded an honorary LLD by the University of Washington. In 1951 he served as secretary of the World Methodist Conference at Oxford.
He was a founder member and treasurer of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship, and was one of the MSF group that met William Temple, then Archbishop of York, in 1938 to discuss Anglican-Methodist relations. He was also treasurer of the Friends of Reunion and a member of the Council of the Royal Historical Society. He received an MA from Liverpool University for a thesis published in 1946 on English Dissent under the Early Hanoverians. He died on 4 January 1952.