He was born in Greenock, in 1872, but his family came to Edinburgh in his youth and he was then educated at Merchiston Castle School. He then studied Chemistry at Andersonian college in Glasgow under Prof William Dittmar.
He then went to Heidelberg where he gained his first doctorate (PhD) in 1896. He was greatly influenced there by Victor Meyer. Returning to Britain, he was the first Priestley scholar at the University of Birmingham. In 1904, he began lecturing in Chemistry at Glasgow University. In 1919, he became the first Gardiner chair of Organic Chemistry.