Ronald George Wreyford Norrish was born in 1897, in Cambridge, England. The son of Amy and Herbert Norrish, his undergraduate studies at Cambridge University were interrupted by service in France during World War I. After the war he resumed his studies and continued on at Cambridge, earning a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1924. Norrish married Anne Smith two years later; the couple had twin daughters. He served for the rest of his academic and research life at Cambridge University until his retirement in 1965. Norrish died at Cambridge in 1978.

Norrish's early work at Cambridge involved the photochemistry of rather simple compounds, such as ketones, aldehydes, and nitrogen peroxide. He discovered that light breaks down these compounds in one of two directions, creating either stable molecules or unstable "free radicals," which are molecules that have unpaired electrons. As a corollary to this work, Norrish and his laboratory also began studying chemical...