He won an entrance Exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became Senior Scholar in his first year of residence.
For the latter part of his career he was a member of staff in the Zoology Department of University College London, eventually as professor.
His range of zoological knowledge was notably wide, and his main research was on the behaviour of the lugworm Arenicola.
He determined its habits by elegant experiments, and showed that the rhythm which controls many of its activities arises in the oesophagus.
[1] Wells also published the 1971 (and last) edition of his father's The Outline of History in the wake of Raymond Postgate's death in March of that year.