Elizabeth Lack

In Oxford, the Lacks lived in a flat in Park Town, and later on Boars Hill, just south of the city. Elizabeth Lack died there on 31 July 2015 at age 99.

David Lack died of cancer at age 62 in March 1973 with his final book unfinished. Elizabeth and son Peter Lack (aided by James Monk) completed the book and supervised its printing, Island Biology, Illustrated by the Landbirds of Jamaica (University of California Press, 1976).

In 1948, Elizabeth and David announced their engagement and married on July 9, 1949, taking their honeymoon trip to the Norfolk coast. They had four children: Peter Lack (born 1952, a biologist), Andrew Lack (born 1953, also a biologist and academic), Paul Lack (born 1957, a freelance teacher), and Catherine Lack (born 1959, a university chaplain).

Elizabeth started off monitoring nests of European robins and tits in Wytham Wood as well as European swifts breeding in the tower of the Oxford University Museum. According to the museum, the tower's colony of swifts has been part of research studies since May 1948 and is "one of the longest continuous studies of a single bird species in the world, and has contributed much to our knowledge of the swift."

With the end of the war, she applied for employment at the Edward Gray Institute of Field Ornithology at the University of Oxford. When her resume reached Richard Fitter, he passed it on the institute's new director, the prominent ornithologist David Lack, who was seeking a secretary. When Lack received Elizabeth's resume, Fitter had attached a note: "Here's another for your reject file", but Lack interviewed and hired Elizabeth Silva for the position, effective January 1, 1946, and then, noting her passion for birds, invited her to become a part-time field assistant, helping him perform observations in Wytham Woods, located northwest of Oxford.

Elizabeth Lack (1916–2015) was a British Ornithologist and Researcher, best known for her contributions to the massive reference book, A Dictionary of Birds.

Born Elizabeth Silva in June 1916 in Hertfordshire, England, her father was starch manufacturer, Jack Silva of Kent. She grew passionate about birds and nature while she was still a young girl. She also had parallel interests in violin and piano and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, but the start of World War II brought a premature end to her attendance there. As a young woman in wartime, she served with numerous other Allied female recruits in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in England and France, maintaining and driving ambulances in Europe.