He was born (1951) in County Durham and was educated at Washington Grammar School and at the University of Cambridge (St Catharine's College: BA, 1972; MA, 1975).
In 1972 he moved to the University of London as a research student in chemistry (Westfield College: PhD, 1975).
At Cambridge he had been a member of the University athletics team and was awarded a half-blue for throwing the discus.
[1] He carried out postdoctoral work at the University of Warwick, and was then a researcher at the ICI Corporate Laboratory in Cheshire where he and Fraser Stoddart developed a successful collaboration.
Awards for his work include the RSC Medal and Prize for Materials Chemistry (2005),[5] the degree of Doctor of Science (ScD) of the University of Cambridge (2008),[6] the Wilsmore Fellowship of the University of Melbourne (2007), the Macro Group UK Medal for contributions to polymer science (2012),[7] and the "Leverhulme" Senior Research Fellowship of the Royal Society (2006).