Creswell worked as a mining engineer in
Venezuela, the
Ottoman Empire,
Rhodesia and the
Transvaal before becoming manager of the Durban Deep Mine, at
Roodepoort. At the outset of the
Second Boer War in 1899 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the newly raised
Imperial Light Horse. When mining on the
Witwatersrand began again, he became General Manager of the Village Main Reef Mine. After strongly opposing Chinese labourers being imported to the Transvaal, he resigned as manager in 1903, going on to take a leading role in the campaign to end the use of Chinese labour and "became the champion of the white labourer", advocating the use of white labour, and white immigration, as the solution to South Africa's labour problems. At the
general election of 1910 he was elected to the
House of Assembly of the
Union Parliament, representing the new
South African Labour Party, of which he was leader from 1910 to 1929. He remained an Assembly member until 1938. He was arrested and imprisoned for a month for his role in supporting miners' strikes in 1913 and 1914. The Smuts government suppression of the strikes influenced Creswell and Labour to develop an alliance with
J.B.M. Hertzog and the National Party with Labour joining a National Party-led coalition government as junior partner, resulting in Creswell entering the cabinet. As well as serving as the South African
Minister of Defence from 1924 to March 1933, Creswell was simultaneously Minister of Labour from 1924 to 1925 and again from 1929 to 1933. Despite their ideological differences, Creswell believed that him and Hertzog could find common ground, noting in a written correspondence to Hertzog dated the 12th of April 1923 that In a memorandum by Creswell following the 1924 election, he expressed his belief that Labour could use its electoral strength to check conservatism in parliament, noting that The alliance with the Nationalists eventually led to a split in the Labour Party when Hertzog dropped Labour MP
Walter Madeley from the cabinet in 1928 due to his support for the multiracial Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union. Creswell and his supporters remained in government and became known as the "Creswell Labour" faction while Madeley and other Labour MPs joined the Opposition and became known as "National Council Labour" due to their being supported by the Labour Party's national council. In 1933, the Creswell Labour faction dissolved with its members joining the Hertzog's party. Following the
1933 general election, Hertzog formed a coalition with Smuts and his
South African Party, with the parties merging to form the
United Party, resulting in Creswell being left out of cabinet. He remained a member of the House of Assembly until 1938 when he left politics. In 1935 he was President of the Annual Conference of the
International Labour Organization held at
Geneva.
First World War service During the
South-West Africa campaign of 1914–1915, Creswell was second in command of the Rand Rifles. From 1916 to 1917 he commanded the 8th South African Infantry in the
East African campaign, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. ==Private life==