 He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain from 1895 to 1901 and served in Arthur Balfour's Unionist administration as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from August 1902 to 1905.In 1919 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cochrane of Cults, of Crawford Priory in the County of Fife.Lord Cochrane of Cults was also a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Fife.