Educated at Farnham Grammar School and Edinburgh University, Kendall became interested in solution chemistry. He worked in Stockholm with Arrhenius and did practical work at the Technological Institute in St Petersburg before moving to New York where he attained a full professorship at Columbia in 1922. In 1926 he became Head of the Department of Chemistry at Washington Square College and in the following year Dean of the Graduate Faculty of New York University. In 1928 he was appointed to the Chair of Chemistry at Edinburgh University from which he retired in 1959. He is famous for his criticism of Ghosh's theory and he worked on addition compounds and the separation of rare earths by electrolysis. He was a well known educationalist, having prepared the revised editions of Alexander Smith's famous series of textbooks in chemistry and also as a writer and lecturer.