 He stood, unsuccessfully, twice for Parliament in the Liberal interest, in south Gloucestershire in 1950 and in 1951 the Penrith and the Border constituency.He was however a parish and county councillor, chairman of Penrith and Border Liberal Party, chairman of the Ullswater Outward Bound Trust, served on the Lake District Planning Board and the Ullswater Preservation Society, and was High Sheriff of Cumbria in 1979.He married, firstly, Ursula Priscilla Marie Gabrielle, daughter of Colonel Sir James Nockells Horlick, 4th Bt., on 15 July 1936 (they divorced in 1940), and secondly, Mary Gracia (1913-2004), daughter of George Wilder Neville, of Portsmouth, Virginia and New York City, on 24 October 1940.