He was educated at the Government School of Art in Belfast, and won a scholarship to study in Kensington in 1882, where he began a lifelong friendship with the British sculptor Albert Toft. He contributed illustrations to the English Illustrated Magazine, Illustrated Bits, Good Words and Chums. He exhibited eleven works at the Royal Academy, and illustrated books for children and adults, but he is best known for the hundreds of posters he designed, mainly for the theatre. As a cartoonist he drew for children's annuals, and contributed three cartoons to Punch in 1923, 1925 and 1931. He died at his residence in West Hoathley in 1927, and his headstone in the local Highbrook churchyard was designed by Albert Toft.