 After a period of study at Leeds Clergy School he became a curate at St Peter's Leicester, during which time he married Agnes Winckley.They had two daughters.After five years he was appointed successively priest in charge of St Anne's Conventional District, Perpetual Curate of St Matthew's Holbeck, Leeds, Vicar of St Mary's, Windermere and Rural Dean of Ambleside before his first posting as suffragan bishop of Croydon in 1942.