The son of John (Jean) and Elizabeth, of Samares, St Clement. One of twelve children, three of which, Walter, Harold and Henry, also served during the war although not in the Jersey Company. Prior to the war, he was married to Lillian and working as a police constable in St Helier. His first wife died in 1914. In December 1917, he remarried, to Lillian Mason, a widow of another policeman killed in action earlier that year. They had a house in Stopford Road, St Helier.

Known as 'Charlie', after training in Ireland and Aldershot, he went to the front with the Jersey Company in December 1915. Specially trained as a bomber (hand grenades) he gained a reputation for daring and bravery during the time at Loos in 1916. He also rapidly gained promotion, from Rifleman on joining the Jersey Company to the rank of Sergeant in September 1916.

During that month, in the attack on Ginchy, he won the Distinguished Conduct Medal but was also seriously wounded in the action. After treatment in Queen Mary's Hospital, at Whalley, Lancashire, he does not appear to have returned immediately to active service. Instead, he served in Ireland as an Army instructor, specialises as a bombing, or hand grenade, instructor. In October 1917, he suffered injuries when a grenade prematurely exploded during training. Despite this, at the start of 1918 he returned to active service with the Jersey Company, by now part of 2nd Hampshire Regiment.

After serving through 1918, in the closing weeks of the war, he was killed (or possibly died of wounds) during an attack on the Belgian village of Gueluwe.