 He qualified as a licensed surveyor in June 1882, was engaged in the Department of Lands for three years as a draftsman and then entered the department of mines as a mining surveyor on 16 February 1885.In 1900 he carried out a difficult and dangerous survey of abandoned Newcastle workings running under the harbour and sea-bed.In 1902 was appointed chief mining surveyor and investigated the site of the Mount Kembla mining disaster which killed 96 men and boys.