He was born at Rowley Lodge, in Arkley in Hertfordshire, to Scottish parents: James Kerr, former Principal of Hooghly College in Calcutta, and his wife, Sybella Graham.

[10][11] After a period acting as Demonstrator in the Animal Morphology lectures at Christ's College, Cambridge (1898 to 1902), he was appointed in August 1902 as Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Glasgow replacing John Young.

[17] Kerr openly supported the controversial camouflage claims of American artist Abbott Handerson Thayer.

[7] Kerr's aim was to make ships difficult to spot and fool range finders by disrupting their outlines, or in his own words "to destroy completely the continuity of outlines by splashes of white", to make ships harder to hit with gunfire at long range.

Wilkinson, unlike Kerr, had little difficulty fitting in with the naval establishment, and was put in charge of a large-scale program of painting ships in disruptive patterns that became known as "Dazzle camouflage".

After the war, Kerr engaged in an unsuccessful legal dispute over the credit for creating dazzle camouflage.

[18] Wilkinson successfully promoted the false idea that Kerr's camouflage sought invisibility rather than image disruption.

He held the seat until the university constituencies were abolished for the 1950 general election,[22] serving for a time as Chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.