 Cato travelled that year in Europe finding work with photographers in London, among them H. Walter Barnett, the fashionable society and vice-regal portraitist, and theatre photographer Claude Harris.Through the latter, and with encouragement from Dame Nellie Melba, he pursued freelance work in the theatrical world.Having contracted tuberculosis and, seeking the relief of a warm climate, Cato left England in 1914 to photograph on the expeditions in Rhodesia of Professor Cory of Grahamstown University.