1939-1941: Clement Cyril Carter

The outbreak of war led to a temporary change in the tenure of GA Presidents.

There were only two for the duration of the war, and the first of these was C C Carter.

Clement Cyril Carter was involved with the GA for many years prior to becoming President, and had several roles within the Association.

I believe when he became the President he was involved in some teaching, which would make him one of the first Presidents in that capacity.
In 1938, his acceptance of the offer was announced in 'Geography'


In the early years of the association, he was involved with the journals, and also organised the reviews of books and other resources which were featured in its pages. He provided pictorial illustrations as well, showing the importance of this element of the journals, which is now of great importance of course.

Carter's association with the GA goes back to 1901, when he had an article published in the first issue of 'The Geographical Teacher'.
At the time, he was teaching at Quernmore School, Bromley, Kent. 




Carter later taught at Marlborough College, and in 1926 he was at the helm of a Standing Committee for the development of higher geographical teaching, followed by the creation of a Primary Committee under Mrs. Katz in 1927, and the Secondary Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. C. B Thurston.

He moved onto the Geography Department at Oxford University.

He published a number of books which linked to the courses that he taught, and which were republished for decades after.
These included:

"Man the World over"
"Land-forms and life"
"A Geographical Grammar"

They can be found on the Internet Archive website.

One additional challenge for the GA during the war was that membership dropped as teachers enrolled to fight in the various armed forces.
Bombing in London meant that the conference moved out of the city too, where it had been held of late. There was a conference in Blackpool in 1940, for example, which was away from the obvious places that might have been at risk of bombing. The conference in 1941 was held in Edinburgh.

His association with the GA went back to the beginning and connections with Professor A J Herbertson, who never became President himself, but has his own entry on the blog back in 1915.

His Presidential lecture was on 'The Creed of a Teacher of School Geography'

In it, he talks about the importance of the profession, and some of the challenges in a fairly unique way for a Presidential Address.

"Stock taking and self-examination are salutary exercises for the teacher, .particularly so in a rapidly changing subject.... it is well to pause from time to time and survey both the objective at which we are aiming and the path or paths by which we may reach it."

His address was essentially an acrostic poem on themes connecting teachers with the word GEOGRAPHY.

This is what he suggested that GEOGRAPHY stood for.
This is gold for my Presidential lecture.
G: Groundwork
E: Elasticity
O: Order and Organisation
G: Group
R: Region
A: Atlas
P: Pen and Pencil - "the chief working tools of the classroom"

"The Atlas is the dictionary of the young geographer, and he [sic] must be taught to so regard and use it. It is "guide, philosopher and friend"... a map is no dead thing, but portrays life.... Behind the static red line that marks a frontier, there lies the dynamic life that has gone to its making and that still pulsates along it - the hardships, courage and tenacity of a school where character is moulded..."

H: Humanise
Y: YOU

"Whether geography is or is not to serve as a discipline in the attainment of culture depends on YOU"

Carter's obituary by H. J. Fleure and Cyril Norwood (both Presidents themselves in the years after Carter) sets out from the beginning that he was a special man. I'd be happy for this to be said about me:

"C C Carter was one of the small company of geniuses in the art of education"

"He was a born teacher and he would not be tempted away from what he felt to be his proper work."
He was a Housemaster and developed several new courses.
"He loved Geography, but he did not worship it as a subject. He regarded education as a whole, a traning of the man and of the citizen, in which geography was a valuable instrument."


I contacted Marlborough College to see if their archivist could help - I was particularly interested in an image of C C Carter as I couldn't find one, and was keen to see if they had any other documentation and in particular an image of C C Carter.

Thanks to Gráinne Lenehan - Archivist at Marlborough College
She sent me the image.

The following details are taken from the Marlborough College Register:

Clement Cyril Carter, M.A.

Educated at Lancing College and Trinity College Dublin

Assistant Master Quernmore School, and Felsted School to 1907

Assistant Master at Marlborough College from 1907 to 1937

Housemaster of B3 House and Upcot (a junior House)

Author of geographical works and joint-author of The Marlborough Country

Reader in Geography at Oxford 1937

Died 1949

She also had an image of C C Carter, which was excellent news.

Grainne also sent me an obituary published in the school magazine, The Marlburian (1949), written by George Lamb who taught at the college from 1928-57).





Credit: Marlborough College Archives

References

There are few resources around C C Carter, so if anyone has any further background, please get in touch.

References

www.jstor.org/stable/40574025 - Peter Fox article on the use of images in Geography which references C. C. Carter

Carter, C.C. (1901) "Amateur photography as an aid in teaching geography", The Geographical Teacher, vol.1, pp.27 - referred to earlier

Presidential 'Message' - published in 1940: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40561208 on 'The Creed of a Teacher of School Geography' giving his own thoughts on what GEOGRAPHY stood for - it ends with Y for 'YOU'.

“ANNUAL REPORT, 1938.” Geography, vol. 24, no. 1, 1939, pp. 48–51. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40560833.
Presidential Message - publised in 1941: 'World Outlook in the School' https://www.jstor.org/stable/40561375

Carter, C. C. “WORLD OUTLOOK IN THE SCHOOL.” Geography, vol. 26, no. 1, 1941, pp. 1–6. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40561375.
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.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.699.7377&rep=rep1&type=pdf - mention of C C Carter in here