The legend of A. F. Shields

The well-known doctoral work of Shields is a tale that is frequently recounted by many authors and has spawned a large, continuing body of research over the last 60 years. Despite the success of Shields' work, the details of his experimental methods and results as reported by others are quite variable. Inconsistencies and misconceptions regarding Shields' work are identified and examined here. Incomplete descriptions by Shields, loss of his original data, and Shields' postgraduate absence from the hydraulic engineering community leave some of the identified inconsistencies open to debate.