Richard Laurence Millington Synge (born Liverpool, October 28 1914, died Norwich, August 18 1994) was a British biochemist, and winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography.

Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent his entire career in research, at locations including Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds (1941-1943), Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London (1943-1948), Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen (1948-1967), and Food Research Institute, Norwich (1967-1976).

It was during his time in Leeds that he worked with Archer Martin, developing partition chromatography, a technique used in the separation mixtures of similar chemicals, that revolutionized analytical chemistry. Between 1942 and 1948 he studied peptides of the protein group gramicidin, work later used by Frederick Sanger in determining the structure of insulin.