The following text was published in the November/December 2023 issue of the TTJ (Timber Trades Journal) in the regular “talking timber” slot, which also gets put on the Wood Technology Group pages of the IOM3. For added value I have included some links.
Unfortunately, despite some hopeful searching of old documents, we are still lacking much biographical information about Gwendoline Lavers. We do know she was a mathematician/statistician working in the Timber Mechanics Section at the Forest Products Research Laboratory; responsible for the processing and analysis of the data generated by the Section – no easy task in those days.
Gwendoline’s research bulletin was also published as the first chapter in “The strength properties of timber” published by MTP Construction in 1974, which you can read (with a free account) on the Internet Archive.
With thanks to Nina Baker, Gervais Sawyer, Graham Coleman, Janice Carey and Helen Close for providing information…
Talking Timber, “Lavers’ Labours Last”, Dan Ridley-Ellis looks back at the work of Gwendoline M Lavers
TTJ, November/December 2023 [view]
This year, an article in Nature presented evidence of structural use of wood by early humans, some 476 thousand years ago. The work was done on archaeological samples collected at Kalambo Falls back in the 1950s, which, by comparison, suddenly does not seem so long ago. Wood science has come a long way in the last half a million years. It is now helping to find our way towards a new net-zero future, but still has healthy old roots thanks to ideas planted by previous generations.
Surely one of the most widely referenced works in wood science is “The Strength Properties of Timbers” by Gwendoline M. Lavers. Despite being old and out of print as hard copy, the book commonly referred to by British wood scientists simply as “Lavers” is still much used – most recently helping to inform policy on new planting to diversify timber species to mitigate the growing risks from pests, diseases and climate change. The book was initially published in 1967 by the Ministry of Technology as Forest Products Research Bulletin Number 50, and according to the listing in the April issue of Nature that year it cost 7 shillings and 6 pence. Later editions were published by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) from which it can still be purchased as a pdf for almost the same equivalent cost.
Of the author, it seems that little is known these days, which is a great shame. Historical records tell us that Gwendoline Lavers was born on June 22nd 1915 in the parish of St Annes London, not far from where the IOM3 is now located. By the time of the 1921 census she was living at Sloan Cottage in Watlington, Oxfordshire. From this record we can guess that she took her middle name, Merrin, from her maternal grandmother.
The 1939 register of England and Wales gives Gwendoline’s residence as Wykeham Rise, Oxfordshire, and at the age of 24 she has her occupation listed as “laboratory assistant companion”. We know from other sources that this would have been at the Forest Products Research Laboratory (FPRL), conveniently a few stops down what is now the Chinnor and Princes Risborough heritage railway line.
The FPRL was established in 1925, opening the Princes Risborough laboratory in 1927. One of the first members of staff was Bernard John Rendle, who was to later write the book “Fifty years of timber research: a short history of the Forest Products Research Laboratory (FPRL), Princes Risborough”, published by HMSO in 1976. Sadly the book does not tell us much about Gwendoline, only that she joined sometime between 1929 and 1939. By then it had become one of the world’s leading centres of timber research. We are told that in 1928 the laboratory tested 20,000 small clear specimens and that the timber mechanics section was running like a mass production line – and this was before the laboratories were expanded for testing empire timbers in 1930. It was this very significant body of data, collected over the years by the timber mechanics branch where Gwendoline was working, which became the basis of the deceptively simple tables in her book.
Gwendoline was a very active member of the Soroptomist volunteer service for women, along with Jean Taylor who was to later become the president of the Institute of Wood Science (1986-1988). Rendle’s book also gives some general interesting insights into the community life of FPRL. A laboratory magazine called “dry rot” was produced at Christmas time, and the 1951 issue included a parody wood information report for the species “Peculia odorata”. This is, of course, fictional, although perhaps not entirely invented.
Gwendoline died in 1995 but her work lives on.
Addendum
We have a little more information thanks to Richard Fenton, who got in touch after finding this blog post. Richard started work in the Lab’s Timber Mechanics section in September 1967 and “spent a great deal of time doing various tests on little bits of wood in order to provide Gwen with her data”. He relates that the most boring of these were the impact test on timbers like purpleheart and greenheart, as invariably the specimens refused to break.
Richard was able to add a little more information for the record. Gwendoline lived in an apartment at the station end of Manor Park Avenue, Princes Risborough (somewhere near this google streetview), drove a Morris 1000 car (beige, as he recalls) and was an active member of the congregation of Princes Risborough’s St Mary’s church.
Richard gave us some additional information:
“There was always a flow of people through the Timber Mechanics section with, for example, people from other places working on short-term projects or on placement from university. Of the “core” staff, William (Bill) Curry was in charge. His deputy was Roy Hearmon, who I think had oversight of statistical matters – I recall passing his office one day and seeing him standing on his chair so as to be able to read the scales of a much-extended cylindrical slide rule!”
Roy Hearmon wrote “An introduction to applied anisotropic elasticity” (Oxford University Press, 1961).
“Senior staff also included Jerry Brock and, on the structural testing side, Jerry Grainger. Winnifred Hudson (I think that was her surname; her husband worked in the Composite Wood department) was also there. My fellow Scientific Assistants were Bill Bunnet (who was about to retire and had been at FPRL for donkey’s years) and Jerry Saunders. There was also Gloria Day and Anne Shanks (I think) who worked as assistants to Gwen Lavers.”
“As for equipment used, in addition to the impact test rig, there was an ancient electrically-powered machine that stood in the main hall at the far end from the entrance from the offices. It was used for compression tests on the 2-cm specimens, but from its age I would imagine it would have been used for the old 2-inch ones as well. The thing was operated by three levers. As the load increased, you had to turn a little wheel to move a counter-balance weight and pointer along a scaled beam until the specimen failed.”
“The photos in your blog definitely pre-date my time at FPRL. In my time, at the “top” end (where one exited to cross the road to the structural lab) was a temperature and humidity-controlled compartment, which took up roughly one third of the hall’s width and a third of its length. This compartment was divided in two. The lower part (i.e., nearest to the office entrance) held two Baldwin test rigs. The larger one (a quick internet search makes me think it was this [image]) was used for things like the nail-plate testing, but there was a smaller version used for the 2-cm specimen bending test. Also in this compartment was an electrically-driven, vertically-mounted Hounsfield tensometer, which was used for the shear tests and cleavage tests. The other part of this compartment housed an Instron machine. Back outside, in the main hall, were a couple of very large heavy-duty test rigs that were powered by a hydraulic accumulator. These were located at the lower end of the hall and the stress-grading machine was installed more or less in the centre.“