His only sibling was a fraternal twin sister Dr Barbara M. Ferrier (d. 2006), known as Ray, who likewise became an organic chemist, becoming professor emeritus of the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University.

New laboratory tools and methods enabled their reactions and mechanisms to be studied like normal organic compounds, rather than a separate field, and he pioneered this approach.

[2] In the early 1960s as a NATO Post Doctoral Fellow, he worked in Professor Melvin Calvin’s group at the University of California, Berkeley.

Arriving in New Zealand in 1970 as Victoria University’s first chair of organic chemistry,[9][10] Ferrier continued to lead work on the monosaccharides, specialising in their use as starting materials for the synthesis of non-carbohydrate compounds of pharmaceutical interest.

Here he continued to foster the next generation of carbohydrate chemists in New Zealand – his 'grandchildren', instilling his rigorous approach to chemistry with mentoring and assistance with the group's publications.

Peppi Prasit, a Ferrier PhD graduate and founder of Amira Pharmaceuticals and Inception Sciences in the US, was the trust's foundation donor.