 He was educated at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Jesus College, Oxford, the University of Freiburg and the Sorbonne.As a poet, he was the first to win the double of Chair and Crown at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, which he achieved at Wrexham in 1912 and repeated at Bangor in 1915.He was a conscientious objector in the First World War.