He was Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge between 1991 and 1996[3] when he has killed in a road accident whilst cycling home.
[4] He was born in Frome, Somerset and attended Llandovery College, Dyfed and served two years military service in the Royal Corps of Signals before studying botany at Lincoln College, Oxford gaining a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1957 for research supervised by Jack Harley.
[2] He lived in Sydney, Australia for a number of years as a lecturer in botany at the University of Sydney and in 1961 he was appointed as Senior Research Officer of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
[4] Over 170 scientists attended a meeting held after his death in honour of him and his work.
Much of his research was on non-crop species as he believed that there may be metabolic features present in these that could be bred into crop plants.