He was born on 3 August 1913 in Coventry in England and educated at King Henry VIII School and St John's College, University of Oxford, and was later a Junior Fellow there.
Throughout his career as a chemist, he was noted for his wide interests, making substantial contributions in theoretical chemistry, mass spectrometry, explosion limits, atom recombination reactions, combustion, and several other areas.
This theory was set out in a book "The Electronic Structure of Molecules: A New Approach", published by Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1964.
[5] He died of a heart attack in the Athenaeum Club, London, on 7 November 1975, only five weeks after ceasing to be Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
The John Wilfrid Linnett Visiting Professor of Chemistry was established in his memory in 1993 at the University of Cambridge.