KENNETH HARRY ROSCOE, 1914-1970

This June issue of Gkotechnique was complete, with the photograph of Professor Roscoe in
the frontispiece, and with the introduction and vote of thanks to him as Tenth Rankine Lec-
turer, when he was killed instantaneously in a motor-car accident on Friday 10 April, 1970;
publication was held back to include this obituary.
Ken Roscoe was born in December 1914. His home was in the Potteries and he was
educated at Newcastle-under-Lyme High School where he was head boy, before entering
Emmanuel College, Cambridge with an Exhibition in 1934. He was of strong physique and
soon achieved athletic eminence at Cambridge, representing his College at rugby football,
athletics and cricket. He was selected to play rugby for the University in his third year, but
while playing for the Harlequins shortly before the Varsity match his right arm was badly
broken and this cost him not only his Blue but also several terms in hospital. Six months
after this accident he was due to take the Mechanical Sciences Tripos, but as he was unable to
use his right hand he was awarded an aegrotat degree. This result did not satisfy Roscoe and
he was allowed to spend a fourth year at Cambridge in order to sit the examination in which he
was to obtain First Class Honours. On graduation he was offered a research studentship, but
as he continued to have difficulty with his damaged arm he went instead as a trainee in
mechanical engineering to the Metropolitan Cammell Co. Ltd where he was appointed Assistant
Works Manager in August 1939.
During his undergraduate career at Cambridge, Roscoe had been a keen member of the
Sapper (Royal Engineers) Wing of the Officer Training Corps, becoming commissioned in
1938. Despite his injury he persuaded a doctor to pass him as fit for overseas service, and he
was drafted to France with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939.
In the confused situation leading to the fall of France he eventually reached Boulogne
where he distinguished himself in the fighting on the quays with the Welsh Guards, for which
he was awarded the Military Cross. He spent three weeks evading capture before he was taken
prisoner in June 1940. So at the age of 25, when in a peaceful world he would have been
acquiring professional engineering experience to fit him for membership of an engineering
institution, he became one of the young men destined to spend five formative years in a prison
camp. As a prisoner Roscoe was an active member of various escape groups and although he
got out more than once, each time he was recaptured. Another of his activities as a prisoner of
war was helping to organize a university course in mathematics and engineering without the
use of textbooks. Through the Red Cross prisoners were allowed to take external London
Intermediate Examinations which Roscoe himself did in French and German. His experi-
ences during these years of continual danger and deprivation were to have a considerable
influence on his post-war life.
When Ken Roscoe was liberated in April 1945 he married Janet Gimson whom he had met
on leave and become engaged to five years earlier. He returned to Cambridge as a research
student in Soil Mechanics but in 1947 a junior teaching appointment as Demonstrator in the
Department was found for him by Professor Baker and he began to teach, and to build up a
Soil Mechanics laboratory. At the same time he took command of the Cambridgeshire
County Battalion of the Army Cadet Force from 1946 to 1952, and also became a supervisor
for engineering undergraduates of Emmanuel College. In 1948 he was appointed University
Lecturer and elected to a Fellowship at Emmanuel. His first small laboratory was described
in the Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation
Engineering at Rotterdam, and by that date he was giving a course of final-year undergraduate
lectures based on Terzaghi’s and Taylor’s books.
His early research interest was the study of the mechanical behaviour of soils, and this was
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124 OBITUARY

to become a dominant theme and interest of the group at Cambridge. He taught the Mohr-
Coulomb strength theory from necessity; but only in Hvorslev’s thesis, which he translated
from the German, could he find any experimental work on shear strength that in any way
satisfied him. He found himself increasingly critical of the current practice of Soil Mechanics
-as was clear in his summing up at the London Conference on Shear Strength in 1950. He
had the strength of will, and Cambridge offered him the independence, to choose his own
approach.
His original design of an apparatus for imposing simple shear on soil samples (which came
to be known as the simple shear apparatus or S.S.A.) formed a central feature of his research
work on shear strength. This apparatus became the forerunner of a sequence of other special
and complicated pieces of test equipment. His early work followed that of Hvorslev in seek-
ing to determine for a soil at the moment of failure the actual voids ratio in the region of failure.
For this reason in the late 1950s he mistrusted the early published data of conventional tri-
axial tests, yet at this time his S.S.A. and other special techniques had not been developed to a
stage where he had more reliable data. His reluctance to compromise on the test data made
him hold back the submission of the 1958 paper ‘On the Yielding of Soils’; when eventually
published this was awarded the inaugural prize of what was then the British Soil Mechanics
Society, and resulted in an increasing number of research students being attracted to Cam-
bridge.
In 1952 he became a Tutor and Director of Studies in Engineering at Emmanuel College;
and from 1955 accepted responsibility as Domestic Bursar for the extensive repairs and excel-
lent renovation of the buildings of Emmanuel College, together with the construction of a new
student hostel. Many visitors to Cambridge at that time may have been surprised by his
passionate exposition of the technical inadequacy of some feature of the work on the College,
which he would often introduce concurrently with intense discussion of the merits of the
S.S.A. as compared with the triaxial test! He also became second-in-command of the Cam-
bridge University Officers’ Training Corps in 1952. The regular soldiers who were appointed
for two-year spells to Cambridge to serve as Commanding Officers found him an enthusiastic
and sometimes challenging colleague. He received the Territorial Decoration in 1954 and
continued to serve until 1960 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
His life was so full, and he refused to spare himself on any front with the result that he had
been working in the University for seventeen years before he would consider taking sabbatical
leave. In the spring of 1963 accompanied by his family he took four months to visit and
lecture to more than twenty-five soil mechanics groups in the United States and Canada. This
was a happy time for him and his family, and the appreciation and recognition of his research
gave him reassurance. With confidence in the quality and importance of his work he became
whole-heartedly engaged in research on his return to Cambridge. During the next few years
he travelled extensively lecturing at various centres in Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France,
Germany, Greece, The Netherlands and Norway, and most recently Mexico. He received
and welcomed visitors from all over the world to his laboratories and to his home. The pub-
lication of the research work that had been taking place in Cambridge under his direction
brought him recognition in the University Department of Engineering; in 1965 he became a
Reader and in 1968 a full Professor. He also served on the Giooteclznipue Advisory Panel from
1964 to 1963 and on the Royal Engineers Advisory Committee from 1957 to 1966.
A proper assessment of his contribution to Soil Mechanics must remain for a later date.
The Tenth Rankine Lecture is clearly not so much a statement of his achievements as a con-
fident assertion that, in the process of change that is rapidly occurring at present in Soil
Mechanics, the work that will prove to be most significant will follow certain principles which
Professor Roscoe discusses in detail. His death now is a tragedy when he had so much in hand
and could himself have figured so prominently in the next decade of development.
His partisan loyalties to Cambridge and to the group who chose to work with him are evi-

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 OBITUARY 125
dent in the Rankine Lecture. He formed firm opinions and strong loyalties which he was slow
to change. He expected any associate who had a good idea to make a spirited plea for it,
but once approved he accepted its consequences absolutely. He remained essentially youth-
ful in his consistent reluctance to draw from the collected experience of professional practice:
this was perhaps one of the features that attracted young men, who felt an urge to make some
new contribution, to work under his leadership. He had great charm and generosity. He
could show real understanding and tolerance of others: perhaps this was because he himself
had fiery moments in which he knew that it required great forbearance to remain closely
associated with him. He was largely successful in harnessing his immense energy to the pur-
suit of the perfection that he strived for at all times and in all spheres; there was nothing he
expected of his associates that he had not demanded in greater measure of himself.
Those who knew Ken Roscoe well will retain strong images of the man; of the soldierly
bearing that he retained even when leaving the laboratory on his bicycle, pipe in mouth, in the
familiar trench coat and Hawks Club scarf; of finding him working late at night in his room,
commenting with a trooper’s oath about some imperfection in the work which he was trying
to write up in one of his complicated papers; of the unbounded hospitality given to all who
visited the family home at Millington Road. He was proud, yet diffident and would be sur-
prised how many people will miss him.
The circumstances of his death should also be related. He had cut short his holiday in
Wales with Janet and their children, Barley and Hal, to collect a piece of silver commissioned
for a presentation at a special dinner in Emmanuel that he had organized. Returning to
Cambridge with it, alone in his car, he left Reading with this happy occasion ahead of him.
As a lorry driver saw him approach, unaccountably the car swerved and collided head on with
the oncoming lorry. So Cambridge and the world of Soil Mechanics lost an outstanding figure
who still had much to contribute, and Janet lost her husband a few days before their 25th
wedding anniversary. A.N.S. C.P.W.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ROSCOE, K. H. (1948). Report on Soil Mech. Lab., Cambridge. Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. Soil Mech. 6. 202-203.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1951). Final summing up at Conference on shear strength of soils, London, 1950. Gdo-
technique 2, No. 3, 248250.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1953). An apparatus for the application of simple shear to soil samples. Proc. 3rd Int.
Conf. Soil Mech. 1,No. 2, 186-191.
EICKHOFF, K. G. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1955). Tests on two North Light portals. B.W.R.A. Rep. 55 pp.
ROSCOE. K. H. & SCHOFIELD. A. N. (1956). Stabilitv of short nier foundations in sand. Proceedings of
symposium in Cambridge on plastic theory of structures. B-r. Weld. J. 3, No. 8, 343-354. -
ROSCOE, K. H. & SCHOFIELD, A. N. (1957). Discussion on Stability of short pier foundations in sand.
Br. Weld. J. 4. No. 1, 12-19.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1957). A comparison of tied and free pier foundations. Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. 1.
419-423. ’ ’
ROSCOE, K. H. (1957). Discussion on Foundations of structures. Proc. 4th Znt. Conf. Soil Mech. 3, 142-144.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1958). Foundations for steel frames which have been designed according to the plastic
theory of structures. Proc. Midl. Soil Mech. Sot. 2, No. 12, 73-99.
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD,A. N. & WROTH, C. P. (1958). On the yielding of soils. Gdotechnique 8, No. 1,
22-52. (This paper was awarded the first prize of the British Soil Mechanics Society.)
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD,A. N. & WROTH, C. P. (1959). Correspondence On the yielding of soils. GCo-
technique 9, No. 2, 71-83.
ARTHUR, J. R. F. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1961). An earth pressure cell for the measurement of normal and shear
stresses. Ciu. Engng publ. Wks Rev. 56, No. 659, 765-770.
POOROOSHASB,H. B. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1961). The correlation of the results of shear tests with varying
decrees
__o~.~~of_~dilatation.
_~~~ ~. Proc. 5th Int. Conf. Soil Mech.. Paris 1.297-304.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1961). Discussion on Division 1: Soil prop&ties andtheir measurement. Proc. 5th Int. Conf.
Soil Mech., Paris 3, 105-107.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1961). Discussion on Section 5: Earth pressure. Proc. 5th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Paris 3,
329-330.
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD, A. N., WROTH, C. P. & THURAIRAJAH, A. (1962). Discussion on the shear
strength properties of calcium illite, by R. E. Olson. Geotechnique 12, No. 3, 246-247.
BAINBRIDGE, J. R. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1963). Instantaneous soil stabilisation by electro-osmosis-fact or
fantasy. R. Engrgs’ J. 77, No. 2, 109-121.

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126 OBITUARY

POOROOSHASB,H. B. & ROSCOE. K. H. (1963). A graphical approach to the problem of stress-strain rela-
tionship of normally consolidated clays. Symposium on laboratory shear testing ofsoils, Ottawa, 258-269.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1963). Discussion on Compressibility of soils, stress-strain properties, pore pressure pre-
diction. Proc. Eur. Conf. Soil Mech., Wiesbaden 2, 14-15.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1963). Discussion on Interaction between structure and soils. Proc. Eur. Conf. Soil Mech.,
Wiesbaden 2, 129-133.
ROSCOE, K. H., ARTHUR, J. R. F. & JAMES, R. G. (1963). The determination of strains in soils by an X-ray
method. Civ. Engng publ. Wks Rev. 58, No. 684, 873-876 and No. 685, 1009-1012.
ROSCOE, K. H. & POOROOSHASB,H. B. (1963). A theoretical and experimental study of strains in triaxial
compression tests on normally consolidated clays. Gdootechnique13, No. 1, 12-38.
ROSCOE, K. H. & POOROOSHASB,H. B. (1963). A fundamental principle of similarity in model tests for
earth pressure problems. Proc. 2nd Asian Conf. Soil Mech., Tokyo 1, 134-140.
ROSCOE, K. H. & SCHOFIELD,A. N. (1963). Mechanical behaviour of an idealized ‘wet-clay’. Proc. 2nd
Eur. Conf. Soil Mech., Wiesbaden 1, 47-54.
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD, A. N. & THURAIRAJAH, A. (1963). Yielding of clays in states wetter than
critical. Gdotechnique 13, No. 3, 21 l-240.
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD,A. N. & THURAIRAJAH. A. (1963). An evaluation of test data for selecting a yield
criterion for soils. A.S.T.M. Sp. Tech. Pub. No. 361, 11 I-128.
ARTHUR, J. R. F., JAMES, R. G. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1964). The determination of stress fields during plane
strain of a sand mass. Gdotechnique 14, No. 4, 2X%308.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1964). Discussion on Lower bound collapse theorem by G. de Josselin de Jong. Pvoc.
I. U. T.A.M. Symp. Rheology and Soil Mechanics, Grenoble, pp. 75-78. Springer-Verlag (1966).
ROSCOE, K. H. (1964). Discussion on Path independence and material stability for soils by D. C. Drucker.
Proc. I. U. T.A.M. Symp. Rheology and Soil Mechanics, Grenoble, pp. 45-46. Springer-Verlag (1966).
ROSCOE, K. H. & POOROOSHASB,H. B. (1964). Correspondence on A theoretical and experimental study of
strains in triaxial compression tests on normally consolidated clays. GCotechnique 14, No. 2, 173-177.
ROSCOE, K. H. & SCHOFIELD,A. N. (1964). Discussion on Stress-dilatancy, earth pressures and slopes by
P. W. Rowe. PYOC.Am. Sot. civ. Engrs 90, SMI, 136-150.
ROSCOE, K. H. & THURAIRAJAH, A. (1964). On the uniqueness of yield surfaces for wet clays. Pror.
I. U.T.A.M. Symp. Rheology and Soil Mechanics, Grenoble, pp. 364-384. Springer-Verlag (1966).
ROSCOE, K. H. (1964). A brief introduction to soil mechanics and an outline of recent work at Cambridge.
Proceedings of CambridgeConference of International Study Group on Soils, pp. 21-30.
ARTHUR, J. R. F. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1965). An examination of the edge effects in plane-strain model earth
pressure tests. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Montreal 2, 363-367.
ROSCOE, K. H., SCHOFIELD, A. N. & THURAIRAJAH, A. (1965). Correspondence on Energy components
during the triaxial cell and direct shear tests by P. W. Rowe, L. Barden & I. K. Lee. Gdotechnique 15,
No. 1, 127-130.
THURAIRAJAH, A. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1965). The correlation of triaxial compression test data on cohesion-
less granular media. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Montreal 1, 377-381.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1967). Behandlung bodenmechanischer Probleme auf der Grundlage neuerer Forschung-
sergebnisse. Bevgbauwissenschaften 14 (1967) No. 2, 464-472 and 15 (1968) No. 1, 8-14.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1967). Discussion on Session 2, Division 2. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Montreal 3,
328-330.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1967). Discussion on Session 7, Division 5. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Montreal 3,
522-524.
ROSCOE, K. H., BASSETT, R. H. & COLE, E. R. L. (1967). Principal axes observed during simple shear of a
sand. Proc. Geotechnical Conf.. Oslo 1. 231-237.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1968). Discussion on Session 1: Shear strength of soft clay. Proc. Geotechnical Conf.,
Oslo, 1967 2, 120-121.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1968). Discussion of Session 2: Shear strength of stiff clay. Proc. Geotechnical Conf.., Oslo,
___. -, 167%17n
lclfi72 -_. -.-.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1968). Panel discussion on Session 3: Shear strength of soil other than clay. Proc. Geo-
technical Conf., Oslo, 1967 2. 188-192.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1968). Soils and mode1 tests. J. Strain Analysis 3, No. 1, 57-64.
ROSCOE, K. H. & BURLAND, J. B. (1968). On the generalised stress-strain behaviour of ‘wet’ clay.
Engineering plasticity, pp. 535-609. Cambridge University Press.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1968). The critical state concept and the use of short-wave length radiation to study the
onset and maintenance of now in granular materials. PYOC. T.H. T. R. Symposium on problems of the
pebble bed and granular materials. Jiilich, pp. 79-l 15.
BURLAND, J. B. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1969). Local strains and pore pressures in a normally consolidated clay
layer during one-dimensional consolidation. GCotechnique 19, No. 3, 335356.
HAMBLY, E. C. & ROSCOE, K. H. (1969). Observations and predictions of stresses and strains during plane
strain of ‘wet ’ clays. Proc. 7th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Mexico 1, 173-181.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1969). Some soil mechanics concepts and the possibility of their wider application. Int.
Conf. on Structure, Solid Mech. & Engineering Design, Southampton University, Paper 81.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1969). Discussion on Session 1. Proc. 7th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Mexico 3, 193-195.
ROSCOE, K. H., JAMES, R. G., PARRY, R. H. G. & WROTH, C. P. (1969). Discussion on Session 16. Proc.
7th Int. Conf. Soil Mech., Mexico 3, 517-537.
ROSCOE, K. H. (1970). Tenth Rankine Lecture: The influence of strains in soil mechanics. GLotechnique
20, No. 2, 129-170.

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 cow/q s. Gap
The late Professor K. H. Roscoe

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