He was born on 2 February 1873 at
Clifton, Bristol, but from the time of the 1881 census until at least 1920 he lived in Berkeley where his mother and father ran a grocer's shop in which he worked along with his brother and sister. After the
First World War he is recorded as an auctioneer living in Berkeley but also appears to have done business in the Thornbury area. He married Louisa Anne Taylor Neale, daughter of a Berkeley farmer, on 13 September 1905. He appears in a newspaper report of an Electoral Registration Court where the revising barrister removed his name from the list stating "It is one of the worst faggots that has come under my experience." This refers to registering for a vote using a loophole in the legislation. His evidence was a lease of the land to his father. == References ==