 On leaving school he was apprenticed to a joiner, but served only two years of his apprenticeship before running away to London, where he worked on the construction of the General Post Office building in St Martin's-le-Grand.Three months later, he learned that the Government of Cape Town was offering free passage to South Africa for men to build the railways in that country.He accepted a three-year contract, at the end of which he had saved enough money to set up in business on his own account.