 After illness in his final year he was awarded an aegrotat degree.He took up part-time teaching positions at Haileybury College in 1912, before moving to Clifton College in 1913, and to a permanent post at Marlborough College in September 1913.In 1914 he was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade and served two years in the trenches before being wounded at Arras (where he won the Military Cross) in 1917 by a sniper.