Walter Norman Haworth was born in Chorley, Lancashire, England, on March 19, 1883. He was the fourth child and second son of Thomas and Hannah Haworth. After high school, and some time spent working in a linoleum factory owned by his father, Haworth entered the University of Manchester in 1903. There he studied chemistry under the department chairperson, William Perkin, Jr., and became particularly interested in Perkin's own specialty, the chemistry of terpenes. Haworth received his degree in 1906, earning first-class honors in chemistry, and then stayed on at Manchester to work as Perkin's assistant.

In 1909 Haworth left Manchester to spend a year at the University of Göttingen studying with future (1910) Nobel Prize winner Otto Wallach, an expert on terpenes. In only one year, Haworth had earned his Ph.D. and was on his way back to Manchester. One year later, he had qualified for his second doctorate, a D...