The second son of James McCance, he was born in Newry on 27th May 1859.  He was educated at Harrow and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1878.  He became F.R.A.S. in 1881.  He must have gone to Australia, because he married Edith Garrard (b.1856), (daughter of William Garrard of Beccles, Suffolk) in Hobart on 28th Feb 1885.  As far as we know, they had just one daughter, Edith, born in Hobart on 17 Feb 1887.  They must later have returned to England to live in Worthing, where he died on 22 Nov 1893.