Thursday, 7 November 2019

1948: Professor Herbert John Fleure FRS


Last updated December 2023

 This is another of the most long serving of the Geographical Association's Presidents, and whose work ensured its survival when it was fairly young.

We come next to Professor Herbert John Fleure - another of the great names who will be forever associated with the Geographical Association, and to whom is owed a great deal by the present day Association, but whose legacy is problematic because of some of the views he held at the time.

In compiling this blog, it is clear that there are several names who are intertwined with the DNA of the Association as it is now, and one of those is H. J. Fleure or HJF as he wrote on so many documents, articles, book reviews and other documentation throughout his long time at the GA.

By the time Fleure became President, he had been linked with the GA for many decades, acting as its librarian and holding other roles, including the compilation of the Annual Report as far back as 1920 in his role as Secretary.

The Annual Report in 1920, for example talked about the progress of the association. The 2020 Conference theme, chosen by Gill Miller, is "Geography really matters", and in 1920, H. J. Fleure was already onto Gill's idea of each teacher doing something to show that geography matters,  in this statement.

"The Report of the progress of the Association should encourage teachers all over the country to put an extra dose of enthusiastic interest into their exposition of Geography and their co-operation with other subjects for a more synthetic education..... [Geography] is a subject that the pupils can go on with, must go on with, all through their lives. It is the one subject which really tries to face the problem of the interpretation of our modern world. it is the most hopeful line of work towards a better understanding between the peoples of the world.... the opportunity and responsibility of teachers of Geography is a great one, and we are confident they are rising to it."

Fleure, in addition to being a long serving Secretary of the Association, was also the editor of 'Geography' for a time, amongst many other contributions that he made to the workings of the GA.

ImageHe was born in Guernsey in 1877.
He went to Aberystwyth University, and also studied in Zurich, Switzerland.
Fleure was an academic geographer for his lengthy career, and was associated with the Universities of Aberystwyth and Manchester in particular where he held posts which allowed him to support the development ot the GA as well.

His research in Wales is described here.

Fleure wanted to look at how place influenced people, and the way that geography affected identity


During his Presidential year, he did a great deal also for the Le Play Society. The Le Play society organised overseas tours as the earlier Touring Branch had done, and also held an annual conference. I also notice the address of the Secretary on the bill below.
I wonder if the Birlings at Birling Gap is still there, or has succumbed to the coastal erosion that has taken place there in recent decades particularly.

The Le Play Society continued after the end of the GA's own Touring Branch had to close.
Someone who is also associated with the Le Play Society and the GA is Frederick Soddy, in whose name grants are now provided for teachers to provide fieldwork opportunities for their students, for both the GA and the RGS.

 Here is Fleure in 1927 - 2nd from the right on the Front Row

Source: https://www.llyfrgell.cymru/fileadmin/fileadmin/docs_gwefan/amdanom_ni/cylchgrawn_llgc/cgr_erth_XXXVrh1_2010_4.pdf

Fleure was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1930, and its Daly Medal in 1939.
He received the Victoria Medal of the RGS in 1946, as have a few former Presidents of the GA. A precedent that I think is worth renewing ;)

Fleure was also one of only three geographers to have been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society - bonus points if you can name the other two...

The Fleure Library is the name of the GA's archive of materials, and it has been quite mobile, and found several homes, as has been described in the blog. Some elements of the library are now on display in the Patrick Bailey room at Solly Street (a room named after another former GA President)

As I blogged about previously, back in 1917 Fleure took the library with him when the GA relocated to Aberystwyth and he was able to secure premises in the town with appropriate space for the archive.


https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1970.0009

He later relocated to the University of Manchester, where he had a Professorship, and the library followed him there, until 1947.
Here is an announcement from 'Geography' in 1947



As one can imagine, as with many other Geographers of the time, we have to look at his work through the lens of history.
According to this piece, Fleure made his name originally through writing about Race, although he was not a racist, and spoke out against those who were.

I wonder what this publication suggested were the particular problems... answers on a carte postale.

When he retired from the Professorship at Manchester, this piece was written about his time at the GA.
https://www.nature.com/articles/153489c0
It describes his major work called 'The Corridors of Time' which ran to several volumes.
A Natural History of Man in Britain Hardcover by
Fleure also wrote several books on the landscape of the UK and the influence of man, and worked with Harold Peake on a series of archaeological books.

No scholar in Great Britain has done more to justify the claims of human geography, closely linked with both the natural sciences and the humanities but pursuing its own distinct objectives and devising its own technique and methods, to be one of the most illuminating approaches to the study of civilisation and its problems.
From a notice in 'Nature' in 1944

Fleure also wrote an excellent 33 page long account of the first 60 years of the GA and Education, which I have referred to several times during the production of this blog.
This is proper scholarship though, compared to my scribblings on this blog.

Updated May 2021
Fleure retired in 1944 and travelled in the USA. This was ahead of him taking up the Presidency.

Source:
“GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION. ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1944.” Geography, vol. 30, no. 1, 1945, pp. 18–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40562425. Accessed 15 May 2021.

Fleure died at the age of 92, having a lived a life full of geography. He finally had his own obituary, after the very many that he had written for other GA Presidents before that.

Addendum
While communicating with Ricky Buck at the GA recently, he told me that he had been in touch with an academic who was researching the life of H J Fleure.
She is exploring his life, and I hope to perhaps find out more about H. J. Fleure through chatting to her.

 Another of Fleure's books, with M. Davis.
Related image

References
Matless, David. “Nature, the Modern and the Mystic: Tales from Early Twentieth Century Geography.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 16, no. 3, 1991, pp. 272–286. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/622948.


I have edited the page to add Fleure's Presidency to the page, as I have with all those who didn't have this information.

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

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1970.0009 - biography from Royal Society pages.

Fleure, H. J. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT.” Geography, vol. 22, no. 3, 1937, pp. 178–188. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40560279.

Mentioned in: https://www.geography.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/Boardman_McPartland_Building_on_the_foundations.pdf

Invited to speak at Edinburgh University: https://www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences/about/history/school-history

His part in the founding of the IBG: Stoddart, D. R. “Progress in Geography: The Record of the I. B. G.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 8, no. 1, 1983, pp. 1–13. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/622270.
 Obituary: https://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/herbert-john-fleure - written by another former President: E G Bowen (or EGB as he was known)

Fleure's account of the 60 years of the GA on JSTOR. I've mined this for lots of details on other Presidents as well, and they will appear in the next few months.

Fleure, H. J. “NEW ENGLAND-AND OLD.” Geography, vol. 31, no. 3, 1946, pp. 105–110. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563882.
https://www.llyfrgell.cymru/fileadmin/fileadmin/docs_gwefan/amdanom_ni/cylchgrawn_llgc/cgr_erth_XXXVrh1_2010_4.pdf

http://www.geocurrents.info/geographical-thought/racial-classification-h-j-fleure-and-the-decline-of-geography

As always, if anyone has further information relating to H. J. Fleure and his time at the GA. he is one of the most influential figures in the history of the Association. Please let me know so that I can expand on this post.
 I am sure there is plenty more to say about him. 

 Image - books from the Fleure library

Added August 2019

Fleure is also mentioned in Crone's chronology of Geography in the 20th Century.

 Reference
Crone, G. R. “British Geography in the Twentieth Century.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 130, no. 2, 1964, pp. 197–220. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1794582.

 Updated November 2019
Thanks to Jamie Woodward from the University of Manchester. He references a document which relates to Fleure's work at the University.

Also thanks for the lead to this article by another former GA president E.G.Bowen, who is yet to feature.


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N81mDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT67&ots=RtCfAEEQvA&dq=charles%20close%20OS%20geographer&pg=PT79#v=onepage&q=charles%20close%20OS%20geographer&f=false

Updated March 2020

In Balchin's Centenary volume, he describes how, when Fleure reached the age of 85 in 1962, he was presented with a book of congratulatory messages and good wishes from several hundred members, together with a portrait in oils, which hung on the wall at Fulwood Road. I wonder where that is now.
At this age, he was still working as Chairman of the GA Council.

Updated July 2022

As with other Presidents I have been adding any details that emerge with respect to controversial views helf by Presidents, alongside the EDI work of the GA.
H J Fleure was a proponent of eugenics, and this needs to be remembered alongside his other achievements. Many of his books have elements of this racist theory within them.

A new image is found in a book of essays to mark the centenary of the department, which was edited by another former GA President: 'EGB' or Emrys Bowen.

This has a new image to me of Fleure.

The book was dedicated to H J Fleure.
It provides a summary of his time at Aberystwyth as well.


There is also mention of how Halford J MacKinder asked Fleure to be the Honorary Secretary of the GA, which resulted in the GA moving to Aberystwyth.


There is mention later in the foreword of the essay collection of Fleure's research:


Updated August 2023

A few tweaks and amendments.


Last updated Decembr 2023

An appreciation by Alice Garnett for the Royal Society.

Fleure was elected as a member in 1936.


Garnett, Alice. “Herbert John Fleure. 1877-1969.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 16, 1970, pp. 253–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/769590. Accessed 19 Dec. 2023.

From this article:

The last occasion when he addressed a formal gathering of geographers was in his ninety-first year. Then, from his home in Surrey, 'cocooned'-as his family described him-in rugs and shawls, in a wheel chair, he was transported to participate in 'The President's Evening' in the course of the Geographical Association's Annual Conference held at the London School of Economics.

It was a raw, bitterly cold night early in January that must have daunted many far younger than himself but for Fleure this was an occasion that come what may, no matter how 'hard the going' might be-he refused to miss, as it was designed also to mark the retirement of his successor in office after twenty-one years of service since his own day.

Unable himself to read close print, his son had read to him-at his request-every detail of the Association's Balance Sheet and Statement of Accounts presented at a recently held Annual Meeting. Fleure astonished officers whom he met that evening by the searching questions he then asked, seeking explanations for numerous small changes and variations in financial procedures, in what would, at any age, have been a prodigious feat of memory.

Before a large audience - and inevitably without the help of notes - he then delivered without faltering, a most memorable and moving speech, reiterating in this, his last public utterance, his plea through the teaching of geography, for toleration and mutual understanding amongst peoples.


Eighteen months later, he died peacefully on 1 July 1969 at his home in his ninety-second year, after an unexpected and short attack of bronchitis. Amongst geographers, he was a leader whose ideals, wisdom and strength of purpose can hardly be surpassed.

Presidential Address:
 1949. Geography and evolution. Geography, 34, 1-9. Presidential

Update December 2023
A series of tweets on the Relief Model of Wales. 

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