It is not surprising that, when magnetic resonance spectroscopy began to become important in chemistry, a number of people thought of forming a new group and one idea was to model it on the already existing IRDG, attempting to bring together academic and industrial scientists Cummins.pdf. The formation of the group was initiated Eric Mooney and was formally proposed by him at a meeting that he organised and held at the Northern Polytechnic in London (now London Metropolitan University) in late August or early September 1963. The aim was to interest London-based scientists in NMR spectroscopy and prior to the meeting Eric had no idea how many would attend, in fact around 125 turned up.

It is also likely that at this meeting, the London-based NMR groups drew up a list of available instrumentation and the nuclei that could be detected. Eric Mooney was to be the secretary of the group and Ernie Cummings of Perkin-Elmer, the treasurer. The new independent group was named the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Discussion Group, and later on 22 May 1964 held its first scientific meeting at which Norman Sheppard was elected as NMRDG Chairman. The membership list for June 1964 is still extant and contains 114 names and includes such later luminaries as Ray Abraham (University of Liverpool, committee member), Geoff Bedford (then ICI Pharmaceuticals), Colin Clemett (Unilever Research, Port Sunlight), Derry Jones (then the Bradford Institute of Technology), Keith McLauchlan (then at the National Physical Laboratory), Pam Lewis (then at the Shell Chemical Company, and later editor of Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry), Ken Packer (University of East Anglia), Les Sutcliffe (University of Liverpool), and Graham Webb (then at University College London).

Although there was interest in combining ESR and NMR interests into one group, it soon became clear that NMR applications would be an enormous field and, with the separate interests of the ESR community, two naturally separate groups were ultimately initiated. Rex Richards became the second NMRDG Chairman, with John Elvidge taking over in 1966. It appears from an extant membership list from 1966 that David Whiffen (National Physical Laboratory), with an ESR background, was very much involved in those early days, acting as Vice-Chairman for a period. The growth of membership was remarkable with the 1966 list showing 236 members. In 1967, the committee consisted of John Elvidge Elvidge 1995 letter.PDF as chairman, David Whiffen as vice-chairman, Ernie Cummins as treasurer, Eric Mooney as secretary (having moved to the University of Birmingham), and ordinary members Jim Feeney, Robin Harris, James Page (by then at Glaxo), and Les Sutcliffe.