He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1903, and after three years at Middlesex Hospital he completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery. He became a Travelling Fellow of Brasenose in 1910, a Doctor of Medicine in 1911 and a Doctor of Science (specifically physiological chemistry) in 1915.
He first became interested in natural life when, due to a childhood illness, he was encouraged to spend time outdoors. He was trained at University College London, and in 1898 was accepted into New College, Oxford on an open scholarship to study natural sciences. After graduating he worked for The Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine and University College London before returning to Oxford, this time to Brasenose College on a Hulme scholarship in 1909.
In 1909 he became a physiology demonstrator at Guy"s Hospital, where he remained until he was made head of the department of chemical pathology at the Bland-Sutton Institute of Pathology in 1914.
As head of department he conducted research into purine metabolism and ketonuria, proving in 1921 that the carcinogen in coal was a cyclic hydrocarbon. In 1929 he discovered the first pure compound to show evidence of cancer-causing activity, 1:2:5:6-dibenzanthracene, and also discovered a series of other carcinogenic hydrocarbons including methylcholanthrene.
In 1930, Kennaway and Izrael Hieger showed for the first time that single polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as dibenzanthracene, are tumorigenic in mouse skin. Between 1932 and 1942 he published six articles on these discoveries in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
After the death of Professor Archibald Leitch in 1931 Kenneway became professor of chemical pathology at the University of London, where he remained until his retirement in 1946.
He was awarded in 1941 "Foreign his discovery of the nature of the carcinogenic substances in coal tar and for his investigations on production of cancer by synthetic substances." and was knighted in 1947. Foreign over thirty years he had suffered from Parkinson"s disease, and this eventually killed him on 1 January 1958.
Royal Society.
