 He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Middlesex Yeomanry on 14 March 1900.He served with the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry from 1914 to 1916 and was briefly ADC to Lt.-General Henry Hughes Wilson of IV Corps on the Western Front, during which time he was said to have used his diplomatic skills to effect a rapprochement between Wilson and Lloyd George.He unsuccessfully contested Chesterfield at the 1906 general election, and served as Conservative Member of Parliament for Salisbury from 1910 to 1918, then Wood Green from 1918 to 1935.