Bathurst worked as a barrister and conveyancer and in 1910 entered parliament representing the Conservative Party as MP for the South or Wilton division of Wiltshire.
During the Great War he joined the Royal Engineers Special Reserves, and then appointed to Southern Command as Assistant Miitary Secretary at the War Office. he carried the task of ensuring the country had a supply of sugar when asked to chair the Royal Commission on Sugar Supply until 1919.