Francis Aston completed his school education at Malvern College, where he won prizes in Chemistry, before beginning his studies in Chemistry and Physics at Mason College in 1893, then the external college of the University of London. Whilst at Mason College, Aston conducted independent research in organic and fermentation chemistry. He later earned a scholarship from the University of Birmingham where he pursued research in physics following the discovery of X-rays and radioactivity in the mid-1890s, whilst also lecturing. Aston subsequently moved to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where the first sector field mass spectrometer had been invented; this enabled Aston to begin working on the identification of isotopes in the element neon, followed by chlorine and mercury. In 1912 he discovered that neon splits into two tracts, but WWI stalled his research and delayed his experimental proof for the existence of isotopes by mass spectroscopy. After working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment during the war, Aston resumed his research in Cambridge and completed his first mass spectrograph in 1919. Subsequent improvements in the instrument improved mass resolving power and mass accuracy, enabling Aston to identify 212 of the 287 naturally occurring isotopes through the electromagnetic focusing of the instrument. As a result, in 1921 Aston became a Fellow of the Royal Society and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry the next year.