[5] Kimmins' first scientific job was as an assistant to the entomologist Harold Maxwell Lefroy (1877–1925) at the Royal College of Science.
[12] Kimmins joined the Home Guard, was eventually called to active service and worked for the Photographic Interpretation Unit of the Intelligence Branch of the Royal Air Force.
[6] The home where Kimmins' parents and sister lived was destroyed by a flying bomb in June 1944 but his family escaped without injury.
Mosely and Kimmins tried to improve the description of specimens from Australia and New Zealand which had belonged to Robert McLachlan and Francis Walker as the distance to London meant it was difficult for scientists from those countries to access the material.
[14] White had studied at the Royal School of Needlework[15] and as Nancy Kimmins she became a notable member of the Embroiderers' Guild,[16] helping to organise the creation of new embroideries for the bombed-out church of St Clement Danes in London.