 On 24 January 1874 he married Mary Jenkins, with whom he had eight children; he would later remarry Emma Eileen Kirby on 6 August 1926.He was an alderman for East St Leonards from 1884 to 1890 and for North Sydney from 1890 to 1928.In 1891 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as a Labor member for St Leonards in 1891, joining the Free Trade Party in 1894 and serving until 1904 (as the member for Willoughby from 1894 to 1895) and again from 1907 to 1910 as an independent and member of the Single Tax League.