A corn merchant who was Vice President of the Primitive Methodist Conference in 1902. A Liberal politician, he was an early member of Worthing Borough Council following its incorporation in 1890, subsequently becoming an alderman and mayor in 1906. On the council he managed to get much needed improvements to the town's sanitation.
He first stood for Parliament for Horncastle in the December 1910 general election and again in a by-election in February 1911 but was unsuccessful on both occasions. He did not stand again until the general election of 1923, when he was returned for Mid-Bedfordshire, but lost the seat in the 1924 general election. He failed to be returned for the Howdenshire Division in 1926 or for Horncastle in 1929. Nominated for Stoke Newington in the 1931 general election, he withdrew his candidature.
For his work with the Ministry of Munitions Inventions Department during the First World War he was awarded the MBE, but after the war he was active on the National Council for the Prevention of War. In Parliament he took a particular interest in colonial matters, especially in East Africa, and was Secretary of the Native Races and Liquor Trade Committee, an organisation promoting temperance especially in Africa. He was appointed in 1927 to the Liberal Party's committee examining its organisation in London.He worked with Levi Moses in drafting the Methodist Church Act 1939.
He died on 2 June 1939.