Sunday, 28 April 2019

The reason for the blog

Why am I writing this blog?

Back in October 2018, I was asked by several colleagues, including former GA Presidents if I would consider putting my name forward to be GA President.
I have had this as an ambition for some time now, having worked at Solly Street for three years, and seen the working of the GA from a different angle, becoming aware of the hard work that goes on day in and day out at HQ. I've also been involved in GA committees for over 15 years. There was also a feeling that very few people were teaching when they became GA President.

In November, I heard that I was going to be taking up the role, and started planning out this blog, which will be a legacy of my Presidential tenure, and hopefully continue to develop as more details on the former Presidents of the Association are added over the years to come.

I started thinking about how many former Presidents were teachers. Not many it turned out.

I found Sheila Jones, who became the first serving teacher to be President in 1977 while at Colston Girls' School in Bristol, and Mike Morrish, who was also teaching at the time he took up the role: at Haberdashers Aske's School. Quite a few Presidents were former teachers before moving into academic geography of course, and there were also retired teachers such as Sydney Suggate who took up the role. I think other more recent Presidents also have some teaching aspects to their work when they were Presidents, but need to go into that in a little more detail.

Having started to research the lives and contributions of all of the past Presidents, I fleshed out some of their biographies, and links to the development of the Association itself. Some trends started to emerge in terms of links to the RGS-IBG, LSE, Oxford University, IoE at UCL and a few other organisations.

There are a few sources of information available for those wanting to find out more about the GA.

The JSTOR copies of 'Geography' and 'The Geographical Teacher' available to subscribers, provide details from the AGMs and other meetings which were posted in these journals, and many Presidents' Addresses to Conference (or these AGMs) are available to read and give a flavour of the development of the Association, and the way that it works. I also had Balchin's Centenary of the Association, and Rex Walford's history of School Geography (which the GA was intertwined with)

Each of these Presidents spent a year leading committees, and providing their own particular steer on the 'direction of travel' of the Association's work.

This blog is also a chance to remind people of how the Geographical Association came about, and what shaped the current format of the GA. It has had a HQ in several cities, and connected with many others.

Here's the news on my school's Facebook page as well, for more details:


At the GA Conference 2019, I launched the blog and let people know that it was available to view in my Teachmeet Presentation, which can be seen below:



Please subscribe so that you can read about each former President as they are added. 
If you know more about any President, please get in touch.
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Saturday, 27 April 2019

1912: Dr George Robert Parkin, KCMG DCL LLD

George Robert Parkin.jpgUpdated August 2023

 Following the departure of Douglas Freshfield, the following President had a particular responsibility to oversee the next stage in the Association's development.

 At this time, a decision was made to bring in distinguished outsiders with geographic interests to strengthen the standing of the Association.
George Robert Parkin was just such a person. 

He was the organising Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust when he was elected, having been a GA member for some time, and also contributing to 'The Geographical Teacher' using his knowledge of the Empire.

Rhodes is of course problematic by association.



The book referred to seems to have been written in 1892 for use in schools, and was called 'Round the Empire'.

Cecil Rhodes himself was particularly problematic and there has been a campaign to have his name removed from buildings at a number of universities and statues removed. This Empire connection needs unpicking.
To see Mr. Parkin's Presidential Address, see the following link:

PARKIN, G. R. “THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 6, no. 4, 1912, pp. 189–198. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40554149.

 One might want to avoid reading p.192-3 of that address though, as it seems to express views that wouldn't be ideal to express today on the impact of the cold temperatures of Canada on immigration patterns.

One of the things that has started to emerge in the years since the turn of the 21st Century has been the connections between organisations and universities and some attitudes and activities which are no longer 'politically correct' and need to be addressed directly.

(See update at the end of the post)

Other quotes are more interesting and relevant perhaps:

 "There is one thing more that I should like to say. If you take an interest in the political thought of this country, it is absolutely impossible to make that adequate unless you teach the people geography. Anyone who does not know the essential needs of this country, that it draws its raw materials from the ends of the Earth and sends back its manufactures to the ends of the Earth, who does not know the sources of that supply, the conditions which exist on both sides, and the necessity of communication between the two in order to secure our national life, is not fit to be a voting citizen of this Empire."

The association with Cecil Rhodes is also one that has been revisited by a number of universities, including the University of Oxford with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign active at the moment.

George Robert Parkin was born in New Brunswick in Canada in 1846, the son of a Yorkshire farmer. His biography is an interesting one, and can be read in more detail on the Wikipedia page linked to below.

He travelled widely in his role with the Rhodes Scholarship, and became knowledgeable about the Empire and its geography. He seems to have been a Headmaster - hence the education connection.

He was awarded the KCMG in 1920, along with other honours in his lifetime. 

I wonder whether this practice of awarding honours to GA Presidents might be resurrected.

Parkin contributed a number of articles to 'The Geographical Journal' in its early volumes, often co-authored with Halford MacKinder. 
He also worked as a correspondent for 'The Times' newspaper in the late 1890s.

Interestingly, he was also involved in the production of a map of the Empire, published by Bartholomew.



Read the review of this resource and you can see that even back in 1903, the Mercator projection was not being favoured by the Geographers who used these maps, and wanted "a large, clear physical wall map of the World on an equal area projection", which "would be a boon to every progressive teacher of geography."

 Also in 1912, according to 'The Geographical Teacher':

 "The number of members is now 1,000, an increase of 38 during the year. While 137 old members have been lost by death, resignation, or lapse of payment of subscription, 175 new members have joined."

 A reminder of the rapid turnover in membership that can often occur in any organisation, and which the GA is always mindful of.

Source: The Geographical Teacher, vol. 2, no. 2, 1903, pp. 93–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40554264.

References

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Robert_Parkin - describes Parkin as an educator, imperialist and author.

I edited the Wikipedia entry to add the fact that he was the President of the Geographical Association. I shall do that for each President, as hardly any of their entries mentioned that before I started the blog.

PARKIN, G. R. “THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 6, no. 4, 1912, pp. 189–198. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40554149.

Amazon page for 'Round the Empire' book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Round-Empire-George-R-Parkin/dp/B001AV3JBU

Further research opportunity:

https://lib.unb.ca/archives/finding/parkin/parkin.html - University of Brunswick archive, which has some documents relating to Parkin

If anyone can supply further information relating to George Robert Parkin, please get in touch.

 Update April 2019

 Thanks to the GA's Chief Executive Alan Kinder for this perspective on the importance of reading outdated views involving 'environmental determinism' as they have not necessarily been consigned to History and are part of the ongoing EDI work the GA is engaged in:

Updated November 2019
Parkin wrote a book about the history of the Rhodes Scholarships, now the Rhodes Trust
https://archive.org/details/rhodesscholarsh01parkgoog/page/n11

More details here:
https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/about/history-of-the-rhodes-trust/

Updated November 2020

This is one of several tweets that I came across. Parkin's association with the Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford University is noted.

Updated July 2022

Updated August 2023 

Article in the New York Times archive from 1919 on post-war education.

A link to a book that he owned describes him as:

"a biographer of Sir John A. Macdonald and Headmaster of Upper Canada College"

1895: George R. Parkin appointed eighth principal of UCC

1923: Parkin Building opens

Named after Parkin?

John Macdonald was the first Prime-minister of Canada.
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Presidential Quote of the Day

"There are few joys greater than the intellectual joy of suddenly seeing the co-relation of things which were formerly detached"

 Halford MacKinder 'The Development of Geographical Teaching through Nature Study' (Geographical Teacher, Vol 2.)
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Wednesday, 10 April 2019

1897 - 1911: Douglas William Freshfield

Image result for douglas freshfieldUpdated September 2023

In 1897, following a period during which the Association was developing its constitution and statutes, Douglas W Freshfield became the first President of the Geographical Association (GA). 

This followed his resignation from the Royal Geographical Society, apparently partly because the organisation would not admit women Fellows. 
He remained in office until 1911, a period which has not been surpassed since, and will not now be, as the Presidency is a one year post (bracketed by other related responsibilities)

From the chronology written by Peter Jackson for the GA website. (see separate blog post)

Douglas Freshfield was one of the people who attended the first meeting when the Association was formed. He was the first Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.

He was born on the 27th of April 1845, and died on 9th of February 1934. 

He was a lawyer, mountaineer and author and also edited the 'Alpine Journal'. 
He was educated at Eton College, and University College, Oxford.

He also wrote a quote that I have used many times in my CPD sessions in the first issue of 'The Geographical Teacher': the first journal that the GA published (of which more to come later in the blog) about the importance of teachers coming together to learn from each other.

This can be read in the image to the right.

This was published in 1901, and was free to members, (but cost one shilling for non-members). This was an important element of the work of the GA, and remains so today.

Douglas Freshfield was heavily involved with the GA from the very early days of the Association.

In 1899,  Freshfield accompanied another future President: E. J. Garwood, on an expedition to Kangchenjunga and explored the geological structure and physical features of Sikkim. Images taken during trips like this helped build the lantern slide library owned and shared by the GA as part of its founding purpose, and which was revisited for the Geographers Gaze project.

In 1900, GA membership opened to all teachers of geography irrespective of age, gender or type of school.

Key lectures were given at this time by H. J. Mackinder on 'Geography as Training for the Mind' and B. B. Dickinson on 'The Use of the Lantern Slide'.

Update
These were referenced by Emily Hayes in her PhD thesis - more on that to come in future blog posts as I discuss the early importance of the lantern slide as a resource for geography teaching and knowledge exchange.

Douglas Freshfield was working as Honorary Secretary to the RGS when he became involved in the founding of the Association. He had made some decisions which were apparently not always welcome by the President at the time: Clements Markham.

On his mountaineering exploits:

He also became the first mountaineer to examine the western face of Kangchenjunga, which rises from the Kanchenjunga Glacier. Freshfield described Siniolchu as "The Most Superb Triumph of Mountain Architecture and The Most Beautiful Snow Mountain in the World".

He made some notable first summits, including in the Caucasus - see later tweet update towards the bottom of the post.


In 1905 he attempted to climb Rwenzori Abruzzi in Uganda but failed due to bad weather. 
However the Freshfield Pass on the mountain was named after him. This makes him one of several GA Presidents who have geographical features named after them. Keep an eye out for them as the blog develops. There are various examples of different features.

 Mount Stanley from Freshfield Pass. Photo by Vittorio Sella.

Freshfield Pass and Mount Stanley - Image source and copyright

Rex Walford's book on School Geography (an important source for this blog) reminds us that Freshfield also had concerns that the membership of the RGS (at the time) did not allow women to become Fellows, although the RGS had given them awards and indeed Fellowships, until the full society forced the Council to back down on this issue later on.
Freshfield penned a brief quatrain at the time:

The question, our dissentients bellow
Is can a woman be a Fellow?
That, sirs, will be no question, when
Our Fellows are all Gentlemen!

Freshfield did re-establish his connections with the RGS later in the later part of his period as GA President. He was also awarded the RGS Founder's Medal in 1903.
(Walford, 2001) - pp.68-9

The work that Freshfield led can be followed by visiting the JSTOR archive of the 'Geographical Teacher' journal. He chaired the AGM and other meetings of the Association and these are reported each year, often held in different venues offered free of charge at the time.

At the AGM of 1903, Freshfield reminded those present that:

"The Geographical Association began its corporate existence as a body militant, a body struggling against a national and professional apathy, of which they recognised the dangers".

 At the same event, there was a reminder of the ties between the Ordnance Survey and the GA, which have persisted for over a century as well, with Charles Close being a later President.

During this period, there was continued growth in the Association, and branches opened in Sheffield and Huddersfield (1907), Leeds (1911) and other cities - I have visited and spoken at these branches, as well as many others. Efforts continued to develop the position of geography in universities at degree level to allow Honours degrees to develop.

When Freshfield stepped down in 1911, the Presidency became an annual appointment, and efforts were made to bring in distinguished outsiders with geographic interests to strengthen the standing of the Association. This pattern persisted for a few years.
At the 50th Anniversary conference in 1943, T. C. Warrington reflected on Freshfield's contribution to the GA, saying this about him:

Douglas Freshfield, who became leader of the movement in the Royal Geographical Society for the improvement of geographical education, had been a member of its Council since 1878 and Secretary from 1881. By the end of 1893, he had retired from the Council and from the secretaryship in protest against the action of the Society in denying ladies admission as Fellows. From the beginning his interest in the Geographical Association was keen.

 In 1898 he became its first President and remained in office till 1911. His interest in the improvement of the teaching of geography was primarily enlisted for public schools and universities, but he was president of this Association when, in 1900, its doors were thrown open to all teachers of geography. Our debt to him for the improvement of the teaching of geography, for his help and guidance and encouragement in the formative years of the Association cannot easily be measured.

 In 1911, he gave his Valedictory Address after 14 years as President, where he reflected on his time as President, and the changes in the nature of the discipline.

 In this address he returned to the reasons for his original exit from the RGS.

"The reason why some of us wanted to see ladies in the Society was that many ladies are engaged in geographical teaching and often in high posts. The Geographical Association was founded to give those ladies facilities denied them elsewhere."

Freshfield went on to be elected as President of the Royal Geographical Society between 1914-17 - cementing the relationships between the two organisations.

References

Valedictory Address: FRESHFIELD, DOUGLAS W. “VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 6, no. 1, 1911, pp. 5–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40554086.

This is well worth reading!

An obituary following Freshfield's death in 1934 is linked to here

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Douglas-William-Freshfield - an entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica - not many GA Presidents have one of those.

Some details from Balchin's Centenary history of the Association used in this post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Freshfield - I edited the Wikipedia entry to add the fact that he was the President of the Geographical Association. I shall do that for each President, as hardly any of their entries mentioned that before I started the blog.

Image: Wikimedia - Creative Commons

 ABE Books for 2nd hand copies of books by Freshfield - if I was doing this properly I would try to get books from as many of the Presidents as possible - I still might over the years to come, although I guess they are in the GA archive, and I will try to get access to those during my time as President and perhaps turn this blog into a proper book: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&an=Douglas+Freshfield&tn=&kn=&isbn=

 At the end of each post, there will be a request for anyone who has further additions to add them as a comment. 

 UPDATE (May 2019)

 While compiling the entry for John Scott Keltie, I came across some words from Douglas Freshfield following Kelties' Presidential Address in 2014
You can read it here:

Presidential Address: KELTIE, J. SCOTT. “THIRTY YEARS' PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATION.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 7, no. 4, 1914, pp. 215–227. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40555979.

 Freshfield was referenced in Keltie's address, for his work in the early years of the Association, but there was a nice quote in Freshfield's comments, which also referred to the GA's founding and the link with the RGS and their position on female fellows. He thanks Keltie for having "created and maintained the leading Geographical Journal of the World"

 There is an interesting quote on fieldwork or "out of door work" as Keltie referred to it. He describes a visit to Japan and France where he had seen teachers taking students outside. He makes the connection with the Boy Scouts, which at that stage was quite a new organisation, having been founded in 1908....

 "Give the Boy Scouts a rough map of some very think and difficult wood, with instructions to look for their lunch at a particular spot, and they will develop remarkable skill in map-reading." - I may hide the packed lunches on our next field trip accordingly....

Updated June 2019 - additional links to Emily Hayes PhD thesis

 Updated November 2019
Image of his grave from Wikipedia


 Plus details on Ugandan mountaineering
https://www.rwenzoriabruzzi.com/highest-peaks-of-the-Rwenzori

For further research:

The Alpine Club has a series of Douglas Freshfield's papers including correspondence and other documents
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=douglas+freshfield+alpine+club

The RGS Archives - apparently his writing was "very hard to read" - there are documents here relating to the Everest expedition of the 1920s, so will have to try to access those
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/b46cabd2-de41-4d6d-9a91-06ca17dde4d9

Search on items
https://rgs.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=217804&query_desc=kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20douglas%20and%20kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20freshfield

These include some lantern slides from his Ugandan climbs, which were apparently destroyed in February 1951 as they had faded.

Updated November 2020

In 1899 the noted British explorer Douglas Freshfield accompanied by the great Italian photographer Vittorio Sella did a circuit around Kangchenjunga. Freshfield described Siniolchu as “The Most Superb Triumph of Mountain Architecture and The Most Beautiful Snow Mountain in the World” in his book Round Kangchenjunga. Here Siniolchu is seen from the "Rest Camp" on the Zemu Glacier one day short of the Green Lakes Base Camp.

Updated August 2021

A set of Freshfield's journals from the Caucasus expedition sold for £4750 at Sotheby's auction house in London - part of a collection that was being auctioned.

Here's the description of the lot:

Freshfield first climbed Mont Blanc as a schoolboy, made at least twenty first ascents in the 1860s and 1870s, chiefly of lesser known-peaks in the Italian Alps, and was president of the Alpine Club from 1893 to 1895. "In 1868 he explored, together with Charles Tucker, Adolphus Moor, and his lifelong friend François Devouassoud, the central Caucasus, which, except for the lower heights, were then unknown. He made the first ascent of Kazbek (16,546 ft), Elbrus (18,470 ft), and several other peaks, and recorded the existence of large glaciers in the regions between them. After returning to the Caucasus in 1887 and 1889 he published his Exploration of the Caucasus (1896), which was for a time a standard work. In 1899 he visited India, Burma, and Ceylon, and made, with Dr Edmund Johnston Garwood, the circuit of Kanchenjunga through unmapped territory in Sikkim and Nepal, recorded in Round Kanchenjunga (1903) [see lot 532]. Lastly, in 1905, at the age of sixty, he tried, with A. L. Mumm, to ascend Ruwenzori in Uganda, then known as the Mountains of the Moon, but was stopped by bad weather and mud at 12,000 ft." (ODNB).

Updated July 2022

Freshfield in later life supported others.
He was particularly active in mountaineering.

And a local example:


I then found his entry in the series of Biobibliographical Studies. 


A little more about his later life:


A good quote in this final extract from that book as well:


And more on his work at the GA: "a militant body"


Updated August 2023

Some further tweaks and amendments.



I discovered a book about Douglas W Freshfield and have ordered a second hand copy. It says that he was the youngest schoolboy to climb Mt. Blanc in 1863.

From the Alpine Journal obituary (source of the image above) which shows his remarkable career and how highly he was held in regard.

https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1934_files/AJ46%201934%20166-198%20In%20Memoriam.pdf

He was in Anthony Wolley-Dod's house at Eton. - an interesting character himself.

It is hard to realize that he made a 'first ascent' as far back as 1861. He may be said to have descended from mountaineering stock, for his mother, Mrs. Henry Freshfield, was a mountain wanderer before the Victorian era and the gifted authoress of A Summer Tour in the Grisons and Italian Valleys of the Bernina (1862)

In 1923 the University of Geneva conferred on him the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws. He married, in 1869, Augusta Charlotte, daughter of the Ron. William Ritchie; sh~ died in 1911. He leaves four daughters, his only son dying as a schoolboy. He was a barrister at the Inner Temple and a J.P. 'for Sussex. 

It features a memory from E J Garwood (another former GA President)

https://charlottemasonpoetry.org/the-teaching-of-geography-by-r-a-pennethorne/ - 1956

Some of us remember the first stirring of the dry bones—and how our founder gave the results of her personal walks and investigations of our own country to the world as The Forty-two Shires—of how the London University Lectures on the subject were given in the ‘Eighties’—of how the Schools of Geography were founded, and largely through the inspiration of Dr. Douglas Freshfield, the ‘Geographical Association’ grew out of the Royal Geographical Society, and the path was ready for the mental explorer and discoverer to tread.

Referenced here:

Updated September 2023
The controversy over women fellows at the RGS-IBG and Freshfield's involvement is outlined in this article:


Source:
Bell, Morag, and Cheryl McEwan. “The Admission of Women Fellows to the Royal Geographical Society, 1892-1914; the Controversy and the Outcome.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 162, no. 3, 1996, pp. 295–312. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3059652. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

“DOUGLAS WILLIAM FRESHFIELD.” Geography, vol. 19, no. 1, 1934, pp. 60–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40558766. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

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1893 - 1897: The no-President years

Updated: August 2022

On the 4th of April, 1893, a letter was sent to a number of geography educators informing them of a meeting which was to be held in Oxford.
It was signed by a number of prominent geographers of the time.

Image: Copyright Geographical Association

A room was found by Halford Mackinder, who was Reader in Geography at the University of Oxford, and the group met in the new Common Room at Christ Church college.
The meeting was held on the 20th of May, 1893, and during that meeting the Geographical Association was founded.
More can be read in an article written by Peter Jackson in 2018.

For the next four years of the Association, there was no President however, with an Honorary Secretary and various committees running the Association as it found its feet and started to attract members.

The original ideas of sharing resources started to develop in this early meeting, lantern slides in particular were part of what was called the 'pictorial method'.

 Between 1893 and 1897 there was no GA President as the post didn't exist.

 B.Bentham Dickinson (of whom more to come in a future post) was Honorary Secretary (1893-1900)

He had collected over 230 catalogued lantern slides to start the process of sharing these, along with lesson notes.

The first AGM was held at the Colonial Institute in London in December 1894, by which time membership stood at 50. These meetings weren't helping Grammar schools become aware of the existence of the Association, which needed to become more active in this area. As Dickinson was a working teacher, an extra pair of hands were needed. An assistant was appointed in 1895 in the shape of  J.S Masterman, who had retired from teaching at University College School helped out until 1900, when Masterman became Treasurer.

At this time, when there was no President, there were 4 questions which drove a lot of the activity and discussions of Association members and officers:

Balchin, in his Centenary history of the Association lists them:

1. Should examination papers in geography be prepared and/or reviewed by experts?
2. Should a knowledge of physical geography be an essential feature in a course in Geography and in any subsequent examination, and if so what should be the syllabus?
3. Should one ask for a knowledge of the whole world in general or for a more detailed knowledge of a continent or region?
4. Should geography be a compulsory subject for some competitive examinations?

You can perhaps guess what the answers to the consultation were...

A number of specimen schemes were published by the Association, who also requested that geography form part of what we might now call the Common Entrance Exam (although the request was turned down initially)

Dr Hugh Robert Mill (who will also get his own entry in due course), published a very useful compilation called 'Hints to Teachers of Geography on the Choice of Books for Research and Reading'
This can be read on this Internet Archive entry along with other of Hugh Robert Mill's books. This was an interesting observation from the footnote of the introduction. It gives the address of the RGS at the time, on Savile Row, and also the correspondence address for the Secretary's assistant Mr. Masterman.


It is also interesting to read some of Hugh Robert Mill's thoughts in the book.

Read more about the initial meeting here, in a piece by Alan Kinder and Nick Lapthorn (the latter will have his own entry on this blog in due course as a Past President)

In 2018, a group of Geographers was invited to a special meal at the venue where the Association was founded.
Images from that event can be seen here.
Here is the CEO, Alan Kinder in the same room where the association was founded, during the 125th Anniversary year.


Image copyright: Geographical Association / Bryan Ledgard
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/972/41597586484_9f605f41b7_b.jpg 

References
W.G.V Balchin: 'The Geographical Association, The first Hundred Years' (GA, 1993)

 Update (June 2019)

 Perhaps the definitive account of this period of the GA was written by H. J. Fleure, and can be read on the JSTOR by subscribers to 'Geography'
Access it here.

Update
Brian Bentham Dickinson shared his reminiscences of this period later (in 1931)
It can be read here.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40557794

He described the first meetings of the Association, including the initial founding meeting in Oxford.

The first formal meeting of the GA was held on August 3rd 1893 at University College School, then at 16 Gower Street, with the Headmaster M. H. W. Eve in the Chair. 

Venue is shown below on Google Earth - near the British Library / Bloomsbury.



I found some letters in Hugh Robert Mill's archive relating to this period and they have been posted separately.

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What is the Geographical Association?

The Geographical Association is the subject association for geography in England and Wales.
It is the leading subject association for all teachers of geography

 As a registered charity its mission is to ‘further geographical knowledge and understanding through education’. 
The Association is a lively community of practice with over a century of innovation behind it and an unrivalled understanding of geography teaching.
 From the biography of the Association.
The Geographical Association (GA) was established through the enthusiasm of public schools (especially that of B. Bentham Dickinson of Rugby) and by the opposition of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) to the use of ‘The Lantern’ and to women members.
Oxford served as the GA's operational headquarters for the first part of its history, but it is now based at Solly Street in Sheffield.


The GA supports geography education by providing a specialist community of practice for teachers to share ideas with one another. We support teachers’ professional needs through our journals, publications, training courses, Annual Conference, Quality Marks, teaching resources, social media activity and a variety of local and national network activities, including face-to-face and virtual networking.

The GA also represents the views of geography teachers and demonstrates the value of geographical education more widely, for example through our Manifesto for geography. We advocate for geography teachers with government and others, and our strategic vision is to be ‘the trusted voice for geography in education’.

The GA was founded 20 May, 1893 at a meeting in the New Common Room, Christ Church College, University of Oxford, led by Halford Mackinder (later Sir), Douglas Freshfield (Honorary Secretary of the RGS) and ten others (mainly Masters from public schools). There was a feeling that teaching needed some new methods.

Douglas Freshfield described the events of the meeting several years later:

Various important points in connection with the 'pictorial' method of teaching were raised, and finally a substantive motion was passed unanimously 'that an Association for the promotion of Geographical Teaching be instituted'.
Dickinson (the Honorary Secretary), Robinson of Dulwich and Fenning of Haileybury formed the committee and started to prepare sets of slides for the use of schools joining before September 1893.

 35 individuals and 6 schools were first to join (the schools were Rugby, Haileybury, Marlborough, University College School, Shrewsbury and High School Nottingham)

 A subscription of five shillings was set.
On 3 August a committee chaired by Dr. Hugh Robert Mill (Librarian at the RGS) was set up to run the GA.
GA members enjoyed reduced subscription rates to the Geographical Journal. The Colonial Institute joined as a corporate member with a three guinea subscription. GA membership stood at 35 by the end of the year.

Fast forward to 2019, and the Association has grown to well over 5000 members around the globe, and many thousands more who make use of GA publications, and resources. It is also involved in a range of curriculum and teacher-development projects.

Our vision for 2020 is to 'provide a trusted voice for geography in education.'

In an increasingly complex and fast-changing world, the GA is a source of trustworthy and authoritative advice and guidance on all matters relating to geography in education. We provide support to teachers and advice to government and other organisations so that the benefits of a quality geographical education are made clear.

Image: copyright Geographical Association / Bryan Ledgard

References
Description of meeting by Douglas Freshfield: www.jstor.org/stable/40554086

 Update (June 2019)

 Perhaps the definitive account of this period of the GA was written by H. J. Fleure, and can be read on the JSTOR by subscribers to 'Geography'

Access it here.

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Tuesday, 9 April 2019

Welcome to the blog

Welcome to this new blog, which was launched at the Geographical Association Conference 2019, held at the University of Manchester.

Over the next two years, I will post a brief biography of a past President of the Geographical Association, roughly one per week, along with other posts relating to their work, and the changing nature of the Association itself.
There have been just over 100 people who have held the post of President, and each one has their own story, and made their own contribution to the workings of the Association.

The biography will also include connections between the people and the broader geographical education landscape. It will describe changes in the Association itself, and also the wider world within which British school geography found itself.

I will draw on a number of key texts for the early years, particularly Rex Walford's history of Geography in British Schools, 1850-2000 and W.G.V Balchin's history of the First Hundred Years of the GA 1893-1993.
Separate blog posts will also mention other sources which will grow as the project develops. These will include books on teaching, on geography education and those with a wider scope, or which were written by the Presidents themselves. I have a fairly good collection of historical textbooks.

I have started writing each of the 100+ posts, and prepared a questionnaire for those Presidents who are still active, and I hope to write about them in a more collaborative way than I will with some of the older Presidents from past decades.

I have looked at many past copies of both 'The Geographical Journal' and 'Geography' to find out more about each President's work within the Association, and read their Presidential Address if it was available. There are also other GA publications which I have drawn on as well. These are all credited where relevant in the appropriate blog post.
There are also numerous connections that have become more apparent with the Royal Geographical Society, and later the Institute of British Geographers as well. The two organisations have worked in the same sphere for over a century, and many of the prominent figures in the GA's history have also been involved with the RGS, and other organisations such as as the LSE.

I am also happy to receive memories and other documents relating to the life, work and achievements of past Presidents from those who may know more about particular people, or know of a source which has further detail. I have learned a great deal about the development of the subject as well as the Association through my work on the project so far.

At the planned rate of progress, it will be a project that will unfold over several years, so there is plenty of time to let me know if you have an image or information that you would like to add in. This is a fascinating history which shows the interesting characters who have held the position of President. These include Lords, adventurers, academics and writers.

This is a personal project, and is not connected to the Geographical Association or the Royal Geographical Society with IBG, other than the obvious subject matter. All opinions are the author's own.

 Image: Alan Parkinson
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