Waite was born in Leatherhead in Surrey, the son of the Review Edward Waite, Master of Arts, and his wife Cleopha Julia (née Dukes) - there were 6 sons and two daughters in total. His grandfather, William Watkin Waite, was a miniaturist, his father an amateur watercolourist, and three of his brothers - Charles, Harold and Arthur - also became artists.
He was educated at the Mansion House Grammar School in Leatherhead. In 1874 he travelled to Ontario, Canada to work as a lumberjack. On his return he took up painting as a profession, exhibiting often at the Royal Academy, London from 1878 to 1919.
In 1891, Waite married Barbara Isabella Tait (1862–1950).
They lived at Peaslake and Abinger Hammer, in Surrey before moving to Woolhampton in Berkshire, in 1910. They moved back to Surrey and East Sussex in 1915.
Waite died in Fittleworth, Sussex in 1924. Waite was a landscape painter and worked in oils.
Much of his output depicts rural scenes in his native Surrey.
He also exhibited at many other major galleries, in London and the regions, and became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in 1893.
