He was born in Oxfordshire, England, educated in Paris (in the 15th arrondissement), served in the Papal Zouaves (alongside his brother Alfred, who died in the Battle of Mentana), and migrated to Australia in 1879 aboard the "Lusitania" (not the ship of the same name that sank in 1915). He settled in the then isolated area of Berowra, before moving to nearby Hornsby, New South Wales.