Career
He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai.
Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - "The Northern Echo" at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire.
Later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in "The Sun" and "The Evening News and Post".
