Laurence Daniel Wesley is a New Zealander who is now retired from a long career as a geotechnical engineer. After gaining an ME degree from Auckland University in 1958 his career involved 8 years working for the Indonesian government, 5 years for the New Zealand government, 11 years with Auckland consulting company Tonkin and Taylor, and finally 17 years as a lecturer at Auckland University. Along the way he completed two degrees from Imperial College—MSc (Eng) in 1964–65 and PhD in 1972–75, the latter under the supervision of Professor A. W. Bishop. As part of his PhD he designed the stress controlled triaxial apparatus that became known as the “Bishop-Wesley” triaxial cell. He has written several soil mechanics text books in both English and Indonesian, and published numerous papers, mainly on the properties of residual soils, especially those of volcanic origin.