He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and then won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in Natural Sciences.
; but the focus of his research changed to taxonomy, the relationships and distribution of flowering plants, and in 1936 he was appointed Curator of the Herbarium at the Botany School of the university.
[1] He was a member of the Cambridge Scientists' Anti-War Group and was one of those who carried out experiments and, based on their outcome, published in 1937 a critical examination of the Air Raid Precaution schemes of the British Home Office.
[3] When the War began he was drafted into the Ministry of Food to work on the dehydration of vegetables (cabbage, carrot and potato) intended for consumption by the armed forces.
He played a major rôle in the inception, development and subsequent successful conclusion of the Flora Europaea project,[11] both as co-editor and co-author.
In 1957 he had the opportunity to extend his research to the North American flora, spending a year as visiting professor at the Université de Montréal working with Áskell Löve[9] and others.