Geoffrey Wilkinson was born on July 14, 1921, in Yorkshire, England, to Henry and Ruth Crowther Wilkinson. It was an uncle, the owner of a small chemical company in the town of Todmorden, who encouraged Wilkinson's interest in chemistry and had the most influence on his career choice. Wilkinson attended the Todmorden Secondary School and then the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the University of London. Supported by a scholarship, he obtained his B.S. degree in 1941 and his doctorate in 1946.

In 1942, while still a doctoral student, Wilkinson worked with the National Research Council on a joint atomic energy project. His work involved separating the various products of atomic fission reactions from one another so they could be studied and the fission process better understood. In the course of this work Wilkinson developed a new technique, ion-exchange chromatography, which has since proven useful in many chemical analyses. Using...