Updated September 2023In 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.
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.
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.The first British climbing party in the Caucasus (1868) - Douglas Freshfield, the expedition leader is seated right. pic.twitter.com/V0q8WUCY5p
— Christian Drury (@cj_drury) January 25, 2016
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 1868 the British lawyer & mountaineer Douglas Freshfield led an exploration of #Caucasus and was the first man, officially, to conquer #Kazbegi mountain with guides from the village Gergeti. π¬πͺπ¬π§
— Tamar Beruchashvili - ααααα ααα α£α©αα¨αααα (@tberuch) December 22, 2019
Douglas Freshfield said he found in Sikkim ". . . the most beautiful mountain in the world.” pic.twitter.com/Y3JGVrQnUL
— sherpafeet (@sherpafeet) March 12, 2017
The first British climbing party in the Caucasus (1868) - Douglas Freshfield, the expedition leader is seated right. pic.twitter.com/V0q8WUCY5p
— Christian Drury (@cj_drury) January 25, 2016
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:The first British climbing party in the Caucasus (1868) - Douglas Freshfield, the expedition leader is seated right. pic.twitter.com/V0q8WUCY5p
— Christian Drury (@cj_drury) January 25, 2016
As a geographer favourite feature of Forsy Row is the Village Hall which was founded by Douglas Freshfield, a local resident, who was also an active member of @RGS_IBG and its one time president https://t.co/HSSXrtger8
— Andrew BΓΆber (@AndrewBober) May 28, 2018
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.
Remember though average of 30,000 attempts on Mont Blanc per year. In 1899 Douglas Freshfield predicted the Himalayas to become the 'playground of the world' as Alps were 'the playground of Europe'. There's still a long way to go!https://t.co/0wBG5KUhz9#everest #Mallory https://t.co/dKEKbgWE6d
— mick conefrey (@mickulus) April 25, 2023
Douglas Freshfield's two-volume work, "The Exploration of the Caucasus" in English was donated to the National Library of Abkhazia by George Hewitt, a British linguist and Emeritus Professor of Caucasian languages. https://t.co/J83QogHIhi
— Abkhaz World (@AbkhazWorld) February 2, 2023
Siniolchu is one of the tallest mountains in Sikkim.The 6,888 metres mountain is considered to be particularly aesthetically attractive, having been described by Douglas Freshfield as "the most triumph of mountain architecture and the most beautiful snow mountain in the world" pic.twitter.com/ZCtchPXXyv
— MedalsandRibbons (@Medals_Ribbons) December 23, 2022
Glorious day on Kazbegi, 153 years to the day since Douglas Freshfield's first foreign ascent in 1868 #Georgia pic.twitter.com/bNSQZR7WOa
— Mark Clayton (@MarkClaytonFCDO) June 25, 2021
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.
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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