Cornforth was a research student of Sir Robert Robinson in Oxford who subsequently worked at the National Institute for Medical Research, London, "Shell" Research Limited and the University of Sussex. He was awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly) for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.

Includes manuscript draft on 'The crystallographic investigation of some phenol formaldehyde polymers' dated Oxford Aug. 1953.