In 1882 he became a student at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, where he took 1st-class honours and obtained the diploma of Associate. On leaving the College in 1885, he was engaged under his father on railway and mining works in Sicily and Italy. In March, 1886, he was employed on a project for a railway round Mount Etna about 65 miles in length and in the following June was sent to Palermo to superintend the completion of the Palermo-Corleone Railway, about 40 miles in length. In January, 1887, he returned to Catania and took charge of the construction of a short line from Raddusa to the Sant' Agostino Sulphur Mines and was subsequently engaged in superintending the plant for the Stretto Sulphur Mine. In 1890 and 1891 he was occupied on the construction of the Ferrovia-circum-Etna - the railway round Mount Etna - and also in designing the plant for the Grotta Calda Sulphur Mines in Sicily, of which he was a joint lessee. He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 3rd of January, 1891.