After a living in several parts of the world the family returned to the UK after World War I, where John was able to go to Westminster School and study entomology at Imperial College London, which he left in favour of University College, London.
[3][4] During World War II he worked on a Colonial Office organising crop dusting as part of an anti-locust campaign.
After the war he worked for some twenty years in the ARC unit at Cambridge, during which time he met and married marine biologist Claudette Bloch (née Raphael), mother of Maurice Bloch, before returning in 1967 to Imperial College as Professor of Animal Behaviour.
His nomination citation stated that he "Has studied a wide variety of problems in the physiology and behaviour of insects, particularly mosquitos, locusts and aphids.
Was one of the first to use experimental methods for the study of locust behaviour in the field; his original ideas on the orientation and movements of locusts have exerted a wide influence, as have his recent analyses of migratory activity and phase change.