Updated August 2023The surname Gregory has cropped up a few times in the Presidential ranks.
Sir Richard Arman Gregory became the GA President in 1924.
He had a background as an astronomer and scientist rather than a geographer.
He was also editor of 'Nature' during the time of his Presidency, and helped secure the reputation of the journal as a learned source.
He had an inauspicious start, as the son of a cobbler. He started out working as an apprentice in a boot and shoe factory, before moving into a laboratory as an assistant. He was also a Science demonstrator at HM Dockyard School in Portsmouth (an intriguing title).
He eventually became assistant to Sir Norman Lockyer (editor of 'Nature', and later became his assistant on 'Nature', before eventually becoming editor himself from 1919-1939, when the journal was growing in prominence.
He published a book in 1894 called:
The Planet Earth: An Astronomical Introduction To Geography which sounds useful.
According to his biography:
After 1919 (when he was knighted) Gregory became more and more a public figure. With his boundless energy and curiosity and his optimism about new causes, he was a member of some seventy organisations and served as president of twenty-five.
1924, when Gregory was in office, was described in 'The Geographical Teacher' as being "one of the most difficult and depressing in the educational world", which threw up a bit of a mystery as to why. I looked back through other issues, but couldn't find out why, other than perhaps some prominent deaths amongst GA officers, and the growing sense of financial issues that would result in the depression of the 1930s...
The article also welcomes Gregory, and thanks Sir John Russell for his time in office.
Gregory's Presidential Address was on the theme of British Climate through history.
It starts with a curious phrase for me: that he had feelings of 'diffidence and satisfaction'. I feel proud and excited...
Firstly he says that he "offered himself for election", so we have now moved from Council deciding, to some sort of election or choice (although not yet amongst all the membership I don't think...)
The topic of his lecture would certainly have been of interest to one of my lecturers at Huddersfield Polytechnic back in the early 1980s: Lance Tufnell, who spent many years reconstructing past climates, and wrote widely on the topic.
He goes on to talk about the Association's great work in supporting school geography, and moving from "a voice crying in the wilderness" to "the established centre of geographical progress in instruction in school, college or university".
It also mentions an early connection with the GA back in 1908, when he gave a lecture as part of a GA organised series.
In 1925, he was thanked by the Association for his support, and also served on the Executive for the year after his Presidency.
Apart from that, I couldn't find further mentions of what Gregory might have done during his time as President. Would be interested to find out more.
The University of Sussex keeps an archive of his letters and correspondence in an archive called the Gregory Papers, should anyone want to delve deeper than I intend to do for this blog post.
Updated August 2023
Sir Richard Arman Gregory became the GA President in 1924.
He had a background as an astronomer and scientist rather than a geographer.
He was also editor of 'Nature' during the time of his Presidency, and helped secure the reputation of the journal as a learned source.
He had an inauspicious start, as the son of a cobbler. He started out working as an apprentice in a boot and shoe factory, before moving into a laboratory as an assistant. He was also a Science demonstrator at HM Dockyard School in Portsmouth (an intriguing title).
He eventually became assistant to Sir Norman Lockyer (editor of 'Nature', and later became his assistant on 'Nature', before eventually becoming editor himself from 1919-1939, when the journal was growing in prominence.
He published a book in 1894 called:
The Planet Earth: An Astronomical Introduction To Geography which sounds useful.
According to his biography:
After 1919 (when he was knighted) Gregory became more and more a public figure. With his boundless energy and curiosity and his optimism about new causes, he was a member of some seventy organisations and served as president of twenty-five.
He was a serial President it seems, as were quite a few GA Presidents.
He was a member of over seventy different organizations, and of these he became Vice-President of twelve and President of twenty-five.
1924, when Gregory was in office, was described in 'The Geographical Teacher' as being "one of the most difficult and depressing in the educational world", which threw up a bit of a mystery as to why. I looked back through other issues, but couldn't find out why, other than perhaps some prominent deaths amongst GA officers, and the growing sense of financial issues that would result in the depression of the 1930s...
The article also welcomes Gregory, and thanks Sir John Russell for his time in office.
Gregory's Presidential Address was on the theme of British Climate through history.
It starts with a curious phrase for me: that he had feelings of 'diffidence and satisfaction'. I feel proud and excited...
Firstly he says that he "offered himself for election", so we have now moved from Council deciding, to some sort of election or choice (although not yet amongst all the membership I don't think...)
The topic of his lecture would certainly have been of interest to one of my lecturers at Huddersfield Polytechnic back in the early 1980s: Lance Tufnell, who spent many years reconstructing past climates, and wrote widely on the topic.
He goes on to talk about the Association's great work in supporting school geography, and moving from "a voice crying in the wilderness" to "the established centre of geographical progress in instruction in school, college or university".
It also mentions an early connection with the GA back in 1908, when he gave a lecture as part of a GA organised series.
In 1925, he was thanked by the Association for his support, and also served on the Executive for the year after his Presidency.
Apart from that, I couldn't find further mentions of what Gregory might have done during his time as President. Would be interested to find out more.
In particular he was the moving spirit of the British Science Guild until its merger with the British Association for the Advancement of Science - to which he also had a very close attachment, serving as president throughout the Second World War.
He was created a baronet in 1931, and elected, for 'conspicuous services to the cause of science', a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1933
In 1924, when Gregory was the President, the GA was in a strong position, with a membership, according to the Annual Report, of 4,610 (up 100 on the previous year). The GA has a library of over 500 Lantern Slides and an active library loan system. This year also saw the death of Grenville Cole (President in 1919). There was also mention of Frank Debenham (another future President) for assisting with the delivery of the Herbertson Memorial lecture in that year.
Gregory sadly died in 1952 after a short illness.
His obituary by the Royal Society stated:
In 1924, when Gregory was the President, the GA was in a strong position, with a membership, according to the Annual Report, of 4,610 (up 100 on the previous year). The GA has a library of over 500 Lantern Slides and an active library loan system. This year also saw the death of Grenville Cole (President in 1919). There was also mention of Frank Debenham (another future President) for assisting with the delivery of the Herbertson Memorial lecture in that year.
Gregory sadly died in 1952 after a short illness.
His obituary by the Royal Society stated:
"Gregory was always very interested in the international contacts of science, and in the columns of Nature he always gave generous space to accounts of the activities of the International Scientific Unions."
Image credit:
Sir Richard Arman Gregory, 1st Bt
by Lafayette
whole-plate nitrate negative, 16 March 1928
NPG x49604
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Image sourced from National Portrait Gallery, and shared under CC license
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image.php?mkey=mw177784
References
More details of the University of Sussex's collection of papers is here: http://www.thekeep.info/collections/getrecord/GB181_SxMs14
Images: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01900/sir-richard-arman-gregory-1st-bt
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Richard_Gregory,_1st_Baronet
I edited this entry to add the fact that he was the GA President.
Books
Discovery: https://archive.org/details/discoveryorspiri00greguoft/page/n8
https://www.amazon.com/Sir-Richard-Gregory-life-work/dp/B0007KFICI
Presidential Address: Gregory, Richard. “BRITISH CLIMATE IN HISTORIC TIMES.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 12, no. 4, 1924, pp. 248–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40556482.
As always, if anyone knows anything more about Professor Gregory, and his connections to the GA, please get in touch.
Image credit:
Sir Richard Arman Gregory, 1st Bt
by Lafayette
whole-plate nitrate negative, 16 March 1928
NPG x49604
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Image sourced from National Portrait Gallery, and shared under CC license
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image.php?mkey=mw177784
References
More details of the University of Sussex's collection of papers is here: http://www.thekeep.info/collections/getrecord/GB181_SxMs14
Images: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01900/sir-richard-arman-gregory-1st-bt
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Richard_Gregory,_1st_Baronet
I edited this entry to add the fact that he was the GA President.
Books
Discovery: https://archive.org/details/discoveryorspiri00greguoft/page/n8
https://www.amazon.com/Sir-Richard-Gregory-life-work/dp/B0007KFICI
Presidential Address: Gregory, Richard. “BRITISH CLIMATE IN HISTORIC TIMES.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 12, no. 4, 1924, pp. 248–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40556482.
As always, if anyone knows anything more about Professor Gregory, and his connections to the GA, please get in touch.
"Science - ranked with arts and religion as the guide and expression of man's fearless quest for truth."
Richard Arman Gregory
Not sure how I missed this Royal Society biography first time round.
It includes a picture of Gregory later in life, and a signature.
It has a great deal of information about his life and exploits.
Following details and image opposite from that document:
Other offices held:
Presidency of the Ethical Union and his Vice-Presidency of the Rationalist Press Association; but that his interest in religion had been maintained is clear from his membership of the National Unitarian Fellowship and his Vice-Presidency of the World Congress of Faiths, the body founded by Sir Francis Younghusband.
In 1889 Gregory returned to South Kensington to work under the Solar Physics Committee as a computer and as assistant to J. N. (later Sir Norman) Lockyer. During the three years that he spent at South Kensington Gregory was engaged for the first and only time in his life in active scientific work, but it was mainly of a routine nature: measurement of the positions and areas of sunspots, examination of the spectra of spots and prominences, study of the direct heating effect of solar radiation, comparison of the solar spectrum with those of various elements, photography of the flame spectra of elements —these would be the lines upon which he was working.
For twenty-one years (1897-1918) he was Professor of Astronomy at Queen’s College, Harley Street, London.
He also lectured in 1918 to troops in France and Belgium, under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., becoming Chairman of its Education Committee and later, for many years, Vice-Chairman of its National Council
It has been said that Gregory made Nature a journal of science, published for men of science and written by men of science. In his farewell message on his retirement from the editorial chair {Nature, 7 January 1939), he wrote: ‘Throughout its existence Nature has had the active support of leading workers in scientific fields in many parts of the world. The aim has always been to record results of research of wide interest or particular importance, wherever it has been carried out and to present authoritative thought and opinion upon progressive scientific developments and their influence . . . My particular mission has been to make men of science conscious of their power and influence in shaping civilized life.’
He was knighted in 1919 after organizing for the British Science Guild a successful Exhibition of British Scientific Products; he became a Baronet in 1931. He was an honorary doctor of the Universities of Leeds, Bristol and St Andrews. He was elected to the Athenaeum under Rule II. Perhaps the honour which pleased him most was his election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1933 under section 12 of Chapter I of the Statutes for ‘conspicuous service to the cause of science’.
I wonder whether I can find a cheap copy of this book:
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