The History of the Gordon Laboratory

The Gordon Laboratory is part of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge and consists of the Ceramics group run by Professor W J Clegg, and the Composites and Coatings group run by Professor T W Clyne. The Gordon Laboratory Seminar Series is run jointly by these two groups.

The Gordon Laboratory is named after Professor James Gordon, who had a long and distinguished career in Materials Science and had links with the University as a pioneer of novel structural materials. He worked for many years in the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, which has since evolved into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), and from DERA split into the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and QinetiQ. Professor Gordon was at one time an Industrial Fellow Commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge. In addition to many scientific and technical advances in the use of composite materials, he made a major contribution to public understanding of Materials Science through two outstanding and highly readable books which became best-sellers - "The New Science of Strong Materials" and "Structures", both published by Penguin.

The establishment of the Gordon Laboratory was supported by DERA as-was and there is an ongoing relationship with DSTL. The laboratory comprises several members of academic staff, distinguished research fellows, technical officers, research associates, graduate students and visiting scientists. There are also collaborative links with other research groups in Cambridge and other universities, research institutions and commercial organisations around the world.

 Professor James Gordon