A merchant and steamship owner, with family and business links to Archangel, he seems to have been a reasonably good egg, campaigning vigorously on behalf of the application of Plimsoll markings on all seagoing vessels old as well as new (bitterly resisted by unscrupulous ship owners), and on behalf of the scandalously ill-used, often press-ganged, teenage apprentices aboard Hull trawlers of that era.

President of Hull Chamber of Commerce in 1859-1860, first Chairman of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the UK, and Deputy Lieutenants for the East Riding of Yorkshire, he was the Liberal first MP for Hull during 1865 - 1885, and stood unsuccessfully for Bradford Central in 1886.