Frederick Ridley was born in Birmingham, where his father was a schoolteacher. Having graduated BSc at Birmingham in 1922 he took the MB, BS in 1925 and the FRCS in 1928. As a young man he worked with Fleming on lysozyme, and his basic work on purification helped in the subsequent development of pen

John Andrew Kerr was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 17 July 1903, the first of the four children of John William Kerr, a mineral water manufacturer. His mother Gertrude Adie was the daughter of a goldsmith and silversmith. He attended the George Dixon School in Birmingham and the Birmingham Unive