 In later life, Sunlight enjoyed to "dine out" on tales of his family's adventures and brushes with the Tsarist authorities but it is suspected that these were largely fanciful.The family emigrated to England in 1890 to avoid conscription and settled in Manchester, probably choosing their new name from Port Sunlight.Sunlight was apprenticed to an architect in Manchester in 1904 and by 1907 had his own practice in St Ann's Square.