 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1923 and according to his membership citation was "[d]istinguished as an investigator and teacher in organic chemistry.Prepared, in 1910, the first, and only example of an optically active compound which contains no asymmetric atom, but owes its asymmetry to an oxime grouping.Solved in 1919-1921 the problem of the constitutions of the photographic sensitisers known as the isocyanines and carbocyanines.