Career
Hurcomb was Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping from 1939, and then of its successor the Ministry of War Transport from 1941 until 1947. He was the first chairman of the British Transport Commission between 1948 and 1953. He was also a keen ornithologist and conservationist, and played a key role in the 1954 Protection of Birds Acting.
In July 1950 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hurcomb, of Campden Hill in the Royal Borough of Kensington.
Lord Hurcomb died in August 1975, aged 92, when the barony became extinct.