[3] Her parents were William Gayler, Director of Stamps and Excise at Somerset House and Ellen Amelia Chrismas, an artist, recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal from the Slade School in 1880 and whose work was exhibited at the Royal Academy.
[5][6] After completing her BSc, she took a post teaching Botany at Colston's School, Bristol, before joining the Metallurgical Department of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) (NPL) in 1915 where she was one of the first two women to be appointed to Walter Rosenhain's scientific staff.
Although the marriage bar remained in force in the UK civil-service until 1946,[9] Gayler's boss applied for special dispensation and she became one of only 5 women within the civil service to be granted the privilege of being allowed to continue working once married.
[2] In 1935, Gayler took-over NPL's work on dental amalgams, developing new metallographic techniques to study the diffusion and reactions within these alloys that govern their setting and hardening behaviour.
[2] In addition to her work on duraliumin and dental amalgams, Gayler also conducted noteworthy research on iron-manganese alloys and on the melting points of pure silicon and iron and on the behaviour of mild steel and duralloys for armour-piercing projectiles.