He "became renowned for his work on isolating, naming and determining the chemical structure of gibberellins, which regulate growth and influence processes such as stem elongation and germination".

His father, John,[2] like his grandfather, was a “signalman on the old London Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway line”,[3] and his mother, Barbara (née Lindsay) came from a farming background.

He went on to obtain a postgraduate studentship from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), enabling him to continue as a PhD student in Glasgow.

[3] He joined a small, high-powered group of organic chemists and microbiologists at The Frythe[6] in Welwyn, aiming to find potential pharmaceuticals in fungi.

A multidisciplinary team was involved in the effort, with Margaret Radler discovering that immature seeds of runner beans (Phaseolus multiflorus) were a relatively rich source (ca 0.25 μg/g).

His final years at ICI were spent in overseeing the move of Akers staff to the newly-established Pharmaceutical Division at Alderley Edge, and the transfer of The Frythe to its new owners, Unilever.

He and a colleague, Bob Binks, worked on the relatively new technique of gas chromatography (GC) in combination with mass spectrometry GC-MS to identify a range of gibberellins.

The results were presented at the Sixth International Conference on Plant Growth Substances at Carleton University, Ottawa, in 1967, and published in 1969.