While exploring some of the RGS' archive last week, I came across this copy of his book on 'the first fifty years' of the IBG. Sadly there was no time to pick it up and take a look.
Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license
Biographies of all the Presidents of the Geographical Association since the founding of the Association in 1893. Researched by Alan Parkinson (GA President 2021-22), with contributions from others, including the former Presidents themselves where possible.
While exploring some of the RGS' archive last week, I came across this copy of his book on 'the first fifty years' of the IBG. Sadly there was no time to pick it up and take a look.
Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license
Oskar Spate is a name that has been mentioned a few times in the documents that I read through while writing my history of the GA alongside the biographies of the Presidents.
A Wikipedia entry here explains a little of his connections with Geography.
I also came across a more recently published biography on his connections, and discovered he was another geographer who came through St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.
GeogPod #83 is in support of Black History Month
In a special episode to celebrate Black History Month we join Professor Pat Noxolo from the University of Birmingham, Professor James Esson from Queen Mary University of London and Francisca Rockey, founding member of Black Geographers.Download the document here (PDF link)
This document references the work of Robert Ogilvie Buchanan and Robert Steel: two former GA Presidents.
They were involved in developing universities across the Commonwealth through the 1950s and 60s.
R.O. Buchanan was born in New Zealand and came to Britain in 1925 to study at the LSE, where he was later chair of geography. Buchanan was one of the founders of the Institute of British Geographers and, like Steel, served on several committees throughout his career including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Geographical Association and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. These connections, combined with the hierarchical and informal processes of academic appointments across Britain and the wider colonial world, put both in pivotal positions for hiring decisions in Nigeria and for geographers seeking to (re)join UK academia.
Steel regularly received requests for suggestions for appointments from contacts working in African universities.Many of those at Ibadan were appointed on recommendation: he was referee for Terry Coppock, visiting scholar at Ibadan 1964-1965, and advised Dick Hodder (lecturer at Ibadan 1956-1962) on how to make the necessary connections to apply. He was on the selection panel for the chair of geography and head of department role, appointing Michael Barbour to the position in 1962. Steel’s archives abound with informal letters reflecting the continuing value of ‘writing to friends’ in the appointments process across the former colonies in Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean until the 1960s.
Source: Craggs, R., & Neate, H. (2019). Post-colonial careering and the discipline of geography: British geographers in Nigeria and the UK, 1945-1990. JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, 66, 31-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2018.05.014
It was interesting to see that Buchanan was referenced....
Buchanan was a colourful character who refused to conform to the expectations of senior university administrators. According to his colleague Pugh, Buchanan ‘had a wide range of acquaintances in Ibadan Town … and never hesitated if he saw a party of drummers heading somewhere – he would follow …’. He would wear shirts ‘made from cloth from the local market with a pattern of rosebuds or Crown birds’. His lectures touched on issues of colonialism and development, and showed signs of the more radical critiques of his later scholarship. Eventually the UCI principal deemed that Buchanan’s clothing showed he was inappropriate for the job, leading to his departure in 1951 for LSE, then what was to become the University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Part of the GA's work is to advocate for geography with Government. The forthcoming Curriculum Review is one such occasion.
This is an overview from the 400+ responses that the GA received. Thanks to all those who took the time to get in touch.
The RGS is holding its own consultation currently.
Feel free to join in with this one too please.
Each year, there is a chance to put yourself forward for the GA Presidency. The next one is 2026-27.
You have until the 1st of November to put yourself forward along with your supporting statements.The full details are, or will be on the GA website.
One of the GA's great contributions to the geography teaching community is the journals that are published three times a year.
The Autumn 2024 issues are appearing and will be on their way to subscribers shortly.
I’m very happy to share that I have joined the Editorial Board for Teaching Geography @The_GA !
— DSinclairTeaches (@dsinclair17) September 26, 2024
A big thank you to Christine Winter for encouraging my application and @RichardBustin and the editorial team for accepting me.
To submit an article: https://t.co/rPOrZnruLZ pic.twitter.com/jlWZbJWKuL
Also joining is Katie Richardson, Head of Geography at Weald of Kent Grammar School.
Many thanks to Justin Woolliscroft for his many years of services on the board. A great colleague and geographer...
This is always a great time. I remember when I saw the poster for my Presidential conference for the first time, so Hina will have been excited to see this...
For the third year out of the last four, the GA President will be a teacher, and a female state-school teacher for the second year in a row.
Hina Robinson is the new GA President for 2024-25
When and where were you born?
My theme is Connected Geographies.
Geography is what explains how the world works – on a physical level but also how people have developed the world. Learning about our interconnectedness is key to sustainability and equity. Geography connects different subjects together – it is difficult to find another area of education that does not have some geographical element! To develop our students into global citizens who take care of their environment they need to understand how the world is interconnected. This is so important in tackling the misconceptions that cause so many issues across the world.
It was written by Hilaire Belloc. Belloc was the GA President in 1915 - quite a while back. You can read his entry by searching the blog.
It's a chunky book all about the Pyrenees which helps with Belloc's credentials. It was published in 1923.
Today is the last day of Denise Freeman's Presidency.
Today is the last day of @geography_DAF's presidency of the @The_GA. For the last 12 months she has tirelessly promoted her message of 'Geography for Everyone' visiting all four nations and engaging with every phase of Geography education. A brilliant President: Thank You Denise! pic.twitter.com/wWlcuRWEJl
— Alastair Owens (@AlastairHackney) August 31, 2024
That means there will be a new President added to this blog tomorrow! Watch out for the new post...
It also means an additional new role for Denise, to take a little pressure off Alastair Owens.
We've worked closely together over the past year and I am really pleased that Denise not only continues as 'Immediate Past President', bur it also taking on the role of Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees from tomorrow.
— Alastair Owens (@AlastairHackney) August 31, 2024
Big day tomorrow for @RobboGeog and @GeogMum...
While exploring something else, I was reminded of the IGU meeting in London in 1964. I've blogged about this before, as I got a copy of the stamp set which was released at the time as a First Day Cover. (PDF download)
I also have a copy of the booklet which was used for field excursions in London during the event. It has some interesting details to this date. Would be interesting to follow the route of one or two and see how much it has changed in the intervening 60 years.
https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/263517541/Clayton_2019_AAAG_geography_sempire_AAM.pdf
Wilma Fairchild's piece in the RGS journal:While looking for something else I came across Daniel Clayton's paper from the University of St. Andrews.
In it he talks about the emergence of decolonising and the early proponents of looking back at the nature of Empire, with Felix Driver's work being mentioned prominently.
In the aftermath of World War II, two British geographers, Sidney Wooldridge and Ronald Harrison Church, implored colleagues to take the study of colonial geography more seriously. Wooldridge (1947, 202) ventured that “it appears to me to throw a strong light on the position of Geography in this country that we are so calamitously and shamefully ignorant of our Colonial Empire”. And Harrison Church (1951, 116-17) sought to make amends with a primer entitled Modern Colonization, noting that Africa was “ripe for rearrangement” (albeit colonial reform more than independence).
As Britain’s sprawling empire shrank, the type of geographical study and imagery associated with it became less acceptable and feasible, and Alastair Bonnett (2003) asserts that geography soon abandoned its bequest as a “world discipline” and geographers sought to make their discipline ‘useful’ again by focusing on pressing domestic problems. Yet geography was not taught at many of the new universities established across the United Kingdom in the post-war decades, in part because politicians continued to view the subject as having “a somewhat ‘dated’ look about it”, as Ron Johnston (2003, 69) puts it.
Indeed, the ‘conquest’ of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in June 1953, coinciding with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, was arguably the crowning glory of 1950s British geography and points to the post-war extension rather than liquidation of geography’s empire.
The RGS was a proud sponsor of the Everest Expedition, and through to the 1970s its learned organ, The Geographical Journal, kept a populist foot in the imperial past by publishing excerpts “from the journal a hundred years ago”, most of which were manly tales of expeditionary derring-do.
Source: (PDF link) to read the whole paper.
https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/263517541/Clayton_2019_AAAG_geography_sempire_AAM.pdf
I've previously mentioned Robert Steel's involvement with the Institute of British Geographers. While exploring some of the RGS'...