He was the eldest son of Sir William Henry Perkin who had founded the aniline dye industry, and was born at Sudbury, England, close to his father's dyeworks at Greenford.

In 1892 he accepted the chair of organic chemistry at Owens College, Manchester, England, succeeding Carl Schorlemmer, which he held until 1912.

During this period his stimulating teaching and brilliant researches attracted students from all parts, and he formed at Manchester a school of organic chemistry famous throughout Europe.

This was possible because he was assigned new laboratory buildings, which he planned together with the famous architect Alfred Waterhouse, similar to those built by Baeyer in Munich.

Frank Lee Pyman, Robert Robinson (who later won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Walter Haworth and Eduard Hope graduated at Owens College while Perkin was there.

In 1912, following a planned change in University politics involving industrial co-operations, which would have resulted in a significant loss of income for Perkin, he accepted a position in Oxford.