Dr Lionel G. Booth (PhD Civil Engineering 1954, Member of staff 1963-92)

Provided by Mrs Valerie Booth and James Sutherland

Dr Lionel Geoffrey Booth, 1929 – 2009

MA PHD DIC CEng MICE FIStrctE FIWSc FIWSc

Education:

1940 – 1947 Manchester Grammar School

1947 – 1950 Corpus Christi College, Oxford – BA Engineering Science

1950 – 1954 Diploma Imperial College, PhD London University (Eng)

Employment

1954 – 1955 Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough

1955 – 1959 - Timber Development Association

1959 – 1963 Research Fellow, Dept. of Civil Engineering,

University of Southampton

1963 – 1974 Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering,

Imperial College,

1974 – 1982 Senior Lecturer – ditto –

1982 - 1988 Reader in Timber Engineering – IC

1988 – 1992

Emeritus Reader in Timber Engineering, IC

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Obituary, written by James Sutherland.

Dr LIONEL GEOFFREY BOOTH 1929- 2009 – 24 Feb

Geoffrey Booth was a civil and structural engineer, but he might equally be described as a philosopher, mathematician, teacher, research worker, designer, consultant, writer or historian: He was all of these and excelled in each. He was born on 1st September 1929, educated at Manchester Grammar School, Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Imperial College, London ending in 1954 with a PhD based on concrete shell roofs.

His first appointment was at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough where for just over a year he was solving dynamic problems with aeroplane engines. He was a distinguished mathematician and one may wonder why he did not make a career in the aircraft industry. However in 1955 he joined the Timber Development Association (TDA). Perhaps he was returning to a boyhood interest in woodworking. Anyway from this date it was timber which dominated his life.

In the 1940s timber, which had been dormant in an engineering sense for a hundred years, was being 're-invented' as a structural material by TDA under its director Philip Reece. There was scope for new ideas here. Hugh Tottenham, another newcomer at TDA, had just introduced the idea of hyperbolic paraboloid shell roofs in timber. Booth was immediately drawn into their analysis and into the design and testing of all types of timber shells, apart from investigating many other aspects of timber engineering.

In1959 Booth widened his horizon by taking on a teaching post at Southampton University, while still working part time for TDA, (soon to become TRADA on being elevated to a research association). His influence grew wider and he made a major contribution to the success of the First International Conference on Timber Engineering at Southampton University in September 1961. He was also increasingly in demand as a consultant, particularly as an expert on timber shell roofs. As consultant to the timber contractor H Newsum & Sons he designed no less than fifty hyperbolic paraboloid roofs in timber between 1959 and 1972.

In 1963 he moved to Imperial College in London, first as a lecturer on timber engineering but from 1982 as reader and head of the Timber and Structures Technology Department. He stayed at Imperial College for the rest of his working life, giving an average of 90 lectures a year, almost all on timber, and personally supervising a steady flow of post-graduate students. At this stage his activities became even wider and more international. He seemed to be on every committee connected with timber and his consultancy work expanded. He was advising a number of authorities and timber contractors but most notably it was with some forward-looking consulting engineers that he became really popular and with whom he made firm friendships.

Considering his large and diverse commitments one might expect him to have been a slightly remote from everyday life. That would be wrong. On first acquaintance some people found him a little frightening. He was tall, thin and serious-looking and certainly forthright in his speech. Aware that possibly he was sounding a little censorious, he might say to an older colleague, half banteringly: "I hope you do not mind me treating you like one of my students". Then the ice would melt and a warm friendship would follow. Nevertheless he could be stern. It is hard to forget one plea years ago from a contractor, whose work Booth rightly criticised, "please get that doctor off my back". Geoffrey Booth was very much a human being and one savours such memories. At heart he was immensely friendly. He enjoyed discussions on many subjects and had a very real sense of humour.

In all he published some forty papers on timber engineering and a number on its history. He deplored the lack of interest in history amongst engineers and was a founder member of the Institution of Structural Engineers History Study Group which was set up in1973 with a bias towards industrial archaeology. He was enthusiastically in favour of its change of slant to engineering thought a year later. He had hoped to write a major book on the history of timber.

Booth was a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of the Institution of Structural Engineers and of the Institute of Wood science and even towards the end of his life he was contributing to the deliberations of a number of national and international committees.

All his friends were deeply saddened when in the late 1980s he developed Parkinson's disease. This crippled him increasingly in the last twenty years of his life and particularly towards its end. Not only did this disease prevent him from working, coming to meetings and enjoying discussion with his colleagues, but it deprived the world too early of a particularly imaginative and creative engineer.

Booth loved most sports – particularly tennis, cricket and football, which he played very competently when young. Even here his mathematical brain was at work. A teenage tennis player remembers being given a long lecture about the flight of the tennis ball in warm weather or damp conditions, a technical interest later followed up

in a correspondence in the Manchester Guardian on "Seam, steam or spin", a subject much debated even now by cricket followers. Early in his life he decided to become a Manchester City supporter, a choice which caused him much grief, frustration and occasional joy throughout the rest of his life .

Geoffrey Booth died on 20th January 2009. He is survived by his wife Valerie whom he married in 1961and his daughter Victoria.

R J M Sutherland, FIStruct E

February 2009