Leonard Maunder was born in Swansea and graduated from Swansea University in 1947. After graduating he spent time working at gyroscopes at Edinburgh University before going to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in 1950. He then moved on to the Aeronautical Research Centre of the US Air Force to work on the effects of aerodynamic heating. In 1956 he returned to Edinburgh University as a lecturer in the newly formed Postgraduate School of Applied Dynamics. In 1961, he was appointed to the chair of applied dynamics at Newcastle and then became head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1967. Leonard was also chairman of the joint SERC/Department of Industry committee, an advisor to the government as part of ACORD and ACOST and was very active within the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, of which he was vice president 1975-1980. He was also president of The British Technology Group and the International Federation for the theory of Machines and Mechanisms between 1967-1979. And in 1977, Leonard Maunder was awarded an OBE.
