 He was educated at Sharp's Institution, Perth and entered the Inland Revenue in 1866.In 1870 he gained a Board of Inland Revenue scholarship in Science and studied at the Royal School of Mines winning 1st class prize in Organic and Inorganic Chemistry.He was a chemist in the Inland Revenue Laboratory at Somerset House from 1870 to 1874 and then became an instructor in the Chemical Research Laboratory at the Royal School of Mines.