Elizabeth Lack
Elizabeth Lack (June 1916 – 31 July 2015) was a British ornithologist best known for her work on A Dictionary of Birds. Born Elizabeth Silva in Hertfordshire, England, she loved birds from a young age and studied music, but World War II interrupted her plans at the Royal Academy of Music. During the war she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, driving ambulances in England and France.
After the war, she joined the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford. Her resume reached David Lack, who hired her as his secretary from January 1946 and later invited her to be a part-time field assistant. They studied birds together in Wytham Woods near Oxford and observed swifts in the Oxford University Museum tower, starting a long-running line of research on the swift.
Elizabeth and David Lack married on 9 July 1949 and had four children: Peter, Andrew, Paul, and Catherine. Elizabeth continued her research, including trips to the French Pyrenees to study birds and migrating insects through the mountains toward Spain. She published several papers that were considered pioneering.
David Lack died in March 1973. Elizabeth and their son Peter completed his final book, Island Biology, Illustrated by the Landbirds of Jamaica, published in 1976.
Elizabeth Lack is widely credited for her large contribution to A Dictionary of Birds, co-edited with Bruce Campbell. The dictionary is a major reference for both students and scientists, and she received honorary life membership in the British Ornithologists’ Union.
The Lacks lived in Oxford, first in Park Town and later at Boars Hill. Elizabeth Lack died on 31 July 2015 at age 99 in Boars Hill.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 03:05 (CET).