After leaving school, he went to Merton College, Oxford and then qualified as a barrister at Gray’s Inn. He spent some time in South Africa, and then went to Shanghai: ‘He was very popular in Shanghai, where he was known as “one of the best magistrates the Settlement ever had.” Latterly he had been in private practice as an advocate in the Supreme Court of China and Korea.’  He left Shanghai with a contingent of volunteers in 1914.

Aged 39