1. John Boscawen Burland was born on 4 March 1936 and is a geotechnical engineer, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Investigator at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Imperial College London, and a noted expert in the field of soil mechanics.
In 2016, Burland was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to geotechnical engineering and the design, construction, and preservation of civil infrastructure and heritage buildings.
John Burland was born in Buckinghamshire in 1936, but moved to South Africa as a child.
John Burland's findings showed that the conventional approach of using effective stress to predict soil behaviour required adjustment for partly saturated conditions.
In 1963, Burland commenced a PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of professor Kenneth H Roscoe.
John Burland published his thesis, Deformation of soft clay, in 1967.
John Burland joined the Building Research Station in 1966, becoming Head of the Geotechnics Division in 1972 and Assistant Director in 1979.
John Burland's move to Imperial gave him the chance to collaborate with Alec Skempton.
John Burland received media attention in the 1990s and early 2000s as one of the engineers who supervised the soil extraction work which stabilised the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
John Burland was involved in ensuring that the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben were unharmed by the extension of the London Underground Jubilee line.
John Burland worked on the construction of a large underground car park at the Palace of Westminster and the stabilising of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City.
In March 1990, John Burland was asked by the Government of Italy to be part of a 14-member committee charged with stabilising the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
John Burland's analysis revealed that thin partings of silt and sand within the structure of the London Clay at New Palace Yard were problematic, giving rise to the possibility of flow through the soil.
John Burland identified that pore water pressures in the clay were in hydrostatic equilibrium with the water table in the overlying gravel, and insisted on special measures to prevent the risk of a catastrophic hydraulic uplift of the excavation base during the construction.
John Burland was guest speaker at the 2023 Terzaghi Day, held annually by the American Society of Civil Engineers Geo-Institute on the birthday of Karl von Terzaghi.
John Burland was awarded the Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal in 1997.
John Burland was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 New Year Honours for services to geotechnical engineering.
John Burland received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1994.