1929: Colonel Sir Henry G Lyons FRS

Last updated August 2023

Colonel Henry Lyons was another President with a varied CV and an interesting one. He was particularly linked with museums, and Polar exploration, and was also director of the Science Museum for a time.

He was born in 1864, and died in 1944, so also had a long life - as have many Presidents it seems.

He was educated at Wellington College, and then went to the Military Academy at Woolwich, before being elected to the Geological Society. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers (a few GA Presidents had served with them) and was posted to Cairo.

The Royal Society obituary describes the source of his interest in geology:

He attributed his first interest in science to an acquaintance made during holidays in 1879-1880 with a neighbour at his Dublin home, who was then being ‘crammed’ for Sandhurst and taking Geology as a subject. The two boys collected fossils from blocks of Carboniferous Limestone lying on the canal wharves, and, with his interest thus aroused, young Lyons spent all his spare time at Wellington in reading Lyell’s Elements of Geology and then the same author’s Principles, being encouraged in these voluntary studies by the science master, Rev. B. A. Irving

From 1909 - this changed things a little when I found this document. I presume this is the same Henry Lyons.

At a meeting of the University Court, the highest decision-making body in the University of Glasgow, on 14 January 1909,

[I]t was announced that Capt. Henry George Lyons, FRS, FRGS, (Hon.) DSc Oxford & Dublin, at present Director-General of the Survey Dept. of Egypt, had been appointed Uni. Lecturer in Geog. for a period of four years from 1st Oct, 1909, at an annual salary of £250. (CM, 1908–09, C1/1/16, p. 46f)

While forms of ‘Geography’ had been taught previously in the University, at different times and as part of other courses of instruction – Ronald Miller (1972, 17) suggests that from at least 1577 it was present on Glasgow curricula – these words in January 1909 formally instituted Geography as an identifiable subject for teaching and, by implication, scholarly inquiry within the University. As noted at an earlier Court Meeting deliberating on the conclusions of a Committee set up to consider this matter, the appointment of a ‘Lecturer in Geography’ meant that Geography would now be taught ‘on a standard equal to a graduating course for Arts or Science’ (CM, 1907–08, C/1/1/15, p. 116f). A later Court meeting of 6 May 1909 also noted a proposal from the University General Council for ‘the addition of the subject of Geography under Depts. of Study’ (CM, 1908–09, C1/1/16, p. 98f). While the term ‘Department’ here does not quite mean what we now routinely understand by it (see Lorimer & Philo, 2009) the effect was still to put Geography on a relatively firm footing within the organisational structure of the University. 

Source: (2009) Guest Editorial, Scottish Geographical Journal, 125:3-4, 221-226, DOI: 10.1080/14702540903364260

Lyons was appointed as a Director of the Science Museum in 1920.
It seems he was a particularly impressive Director. The Science Museum's Facebook page describes his impact:

A strong believer in the needs of the ordinary visitor being more important than those of the specialist, Sir Henry Lyons was hugely important to broadening the Science Museum’s appeal and popularity.

Lyons introduced the first interactive exhibits and the first ever gallery designed specifically to engage children with science and technology.

Between 1921 and 1932 – a year before he retired – the number of visitors to the Science Museum per year increased from about 400,000 to nearly 1.25 million. Today, just under 3 million people visit the Museum each year.

He took over as Honorary Treasurer of the GA in 1926 following the death of E. F. Elton, who had held the post since 1908. He retired from the council when he joined the Science Museum, and the post passed to Sir William Himbury, the Chief Officer of the British Cotton Growing Association.

His Presidential Address was called 'The Geographer and his Material'. it was delivered in January 1929 at the London School of Economics (as were many Addresses during the first part of the Century, before the change to the Easter conference). 

He started by sharing the great honour that he felt at being the President, and spoke glowingly of the impact of Vaughan Cornish's presidency.

He talked about the role of specialist knowledge and skills in supporting the teaching of geography.

Here he is on Cartography, for example...



Because of a change in the time when the President made his address from the very start of the year to later in the year, Lyons ended up doing two addresses.

Lyons, H. G. “Relief in Cartography.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 43, no. 3, 1914, pp. 233–248. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1778611. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.

His 2nd was in 1930.
He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
His obituary was published in various journals.

I like this description of him from one of them.


He died, aged 80 in Great Missenden, later home of Roald Dahl.

References

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_Lyons
I amended this entry to reflect his
Obituary: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.1944.0023

Correspondence in SPRI archive: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/ea55fcaa-eb80-3fc8-b57b-d7f991aaf417 (I really need to take a trip there)

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/78/2028/429
Ernest M. Dowson. “Colonel Sir Henry Lyons, F.R.S.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 31, 1945, pp. 98–100. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3855389.

I know relatively little about Henry Lyons' time as President, so if anyone has further information please get in touch.

Image - there is one linked to here, I am still looking for a CC licensed one

Presidential Address:
Lyons, Henry G. “THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION. THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.” Geography, vol. 15, no. 5, 1930, pp. 353–359. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40559150.

Fleure, H.J. (1953) "Sixty years of geography and education", Geography, vol.38, pp.231-264

Cabinets of curiosities were mentioned by my colleague Claire Kyndt in her GA Conference session in 2015, which was excellent. Search Slideshare for the presentation.

This book explains more:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10046161/1/Histories-of-Technology-the-Environment-and-Modern-Britain.pdf

Read Chapter 6 by geographer David Matless.

Lyons introduced the first visitor-operated models in museums - the interactive displays we are so used to these days and which are found in most modern museums with a few exceptions, such as the Pitt Rivers (which has links to another former GA President Linton Myres of course).

Updated November 2020

From an obituary in a journal devoted to Egyptian Archaeology

Ernest M. Dowson. “Colonel Sir Henry Lyons, F.R.S.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 31, 1945, pp. 98–100. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3855389. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.

Updated July 2022

There is a book titled 'The rise of the Science Museum under Henry Lyons' which was published in the 1970s.

You can read a review here. via Google Books.

Updated August 2023

From a JISC Archive description:

Henry George Lyons was born on 11 October 1864 in London. He was educated at Wellington College, and in 1882 entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. In 1884, he attended a two-year course of military engineering at Chatham, after which he was posted to Gibraltar and then to Egypt, where he studied geology in his spare time. In 1901, Lyons retired from the army and was appointed director of the geological survey in Egypt, a post he held until 1909 when he returned to Britain. During the First World War, Lyons served with the Royal Engineers, retiring with the rank of colonel in 1919, and in the same year was appointed secretary-general of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. In 1920, he became director of the Science Museum in London, where he remained until his retirement in 1933. He was knighted in 1926 and died on 10 August 1944 at Great Missenden.

This Royal Society documented provides all the information you would want to know about him. It doesn't mention his Presidency of the Geographical Association, which is disappointing...

It includes his work on meteorology during World War I, showing how vital weather information was militarily.

It includes an excellent image of an older Lyons shown here.

He was also a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum.

Also President of IUGG. (PDF download)

From an RMetS history.