1951: Leonard Brooks

Updated August 2023

On going through the list of past GA presidents, it is rare to just see the two names of the person without them being preceded by Sir or Professor, or followed by strings of letters and awards, particularly during the first fifty years of the Association. 
This has changed a little in recent decades. I am pleased to have broken some recent trends in the Presidency, and I certainly don't have any of those titles (yet)

Leonard Brooks was President in 1951, following Professor L Dudley Stamp. This must have been a challenge in itself to follow on from such a well-known figure, but it seems like Mr. Brooks was up to the challenge, and had a different energy.

He had earlier been involved in a significant event for geography.

In 1945, the new Director of the RGS: Lt Col L. P. Kirwin, aided by Leonard Brooks, established a new era of co-operation between the three geographical societies (the GA, IBG, RGS).

The House of the RGS, which escaped undamaged from the war, was made available to both other societies. It was used for conferences for some years, such as in 1951, when Brooks became the President. This is an interesting moment in the shared history of the two organisations.

Here is Leonard Brooks in an image including some other GA notaries. The gentleman in the black overcoat and white scarf second from the left is Frank Debenham, who was President the following year (it was the 70th anniversary of Debenham's Presidency in 2022 - my own Presidential conference year - and he got a mention).
Third from the left is Leonard Brooks, with the spectacles. On his left is the unmistakeable H J Fleure.

Image from Balchi's centenary volume.



Leonard Brooks served on the GA's council for several years during the 1940s and his name appears in 'Geography' numerous times during this period.


This greater collaboration between the GA and RGS-IBG is something I hope to work on over the years to come, as I did previously as part of the Action Plan for Geography Team, and since on various projects. 

Brooks wrote and co-wrote a series of books on Regional geographies of the World, this one pictured with Robert Finch.
Brooks had a lot of teaching experience, which is also excellent to see, as well as plenty of experience in school inspection.

At the time of his Presidential lecture, Brooks had spent 15 years as a teacher, and 26 years in school inspection.

Brooks' Presidential Lecture was on the theme of 'Some thoughts on the Present day teaching of Geography in schools".



I like how he started by saying that if delegates read Fleure's pamphlet from 33 years earlier on 'Geography in Education' he would find that things had come round full circle. It was ever thus.

He proposes to do 2 things in his Presidential address which would still make a good focus for any CPD session.



The talk is well worth reading. It touches on a great many things which one can hear talked about at teacher conferences today, over 70 years later.

I don't agree with everything he has to say, but nine times out of ten he is fairly spot on.

His obituary talks about the work he did connecting the GA with the RGS, acting as liaison between the two organisations.



One of the projects that Leonard Brooks started (along with another President Sydney Suggate) was  to develop a scheme where schools could "adopt" ships and send letters to their Captains. It was called the Ship Adoption Society.
This provided a chance for students to write to, and receive letters from ships' crews travelling around the world. This was a great initiative.

I was unable to find an image of Leonard Brooks other than the one above, so had to do some digging, and contact various people.

Brooks' obituary by Fleure and Suggate outlines some further details on his earlier life and career, having been born in Lancashire.

In 1956, he was awarded an OBE "for services to Geography".

I think we should see that sort of citation more often in Honours Lists. I can think of a few people who have done a great deal for the subject but haven't been honoured yet (unless they were, and turned it down).

References

Fleure, H. J., and L. S. Suggate. “Leonard Brooks.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 1, 1965, pp. 82–84. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567028. Obituary details.

Presidential Address:
Brooks, Leonard. “SOME THOUGHTS ON PRESENT DAY TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY IN SCHOOLS: Address to the Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 37, no. 2, 1952, pp. 63–71. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564773.

If anyone knows more information about Leonard Brooks, please get in touch, as with other posts on this blog. I'm particularly keen to get a larger image too, as he is one of the very few Presidents I don't have a high quality image of.

I decided to pursue the school route here.
William Ellis School was mentioned in his obituary.
I found this image on their website - I taught in a room with a similar vibe early in my career, and my own school days were in a room with one of those globes in the corner, which tended to get stuck in position. There were also roller boards, and a raised dais at the front, and heavy dark wood furniture with moldings on the top. I like the addition of explorers names around the top of the walls.


The copyright for this image is the London Metropolitan Archive, and the teacher is named as V C Spary. Spary was also connected with the GA, and helped organise the conference for some years.

I was contacted by school archivist/historians after sending an e-mail and they have been very helpful.
My heartfelt thanks to Christopher Willey, Jim Corbett and Fiona McWilliam.

The source of the following section, sent to me by Chris Willey, is principally the school history (T D Wickenden, William Ellis School 1862-1962, privately printed).

It includes something on the purpose built Geography room of 1913. I see that it is recorded as the inspiration of James Fairgrieve, the senior Geography master who preceded Leonard (and another former GA President who has his own entry on the blog)

Imagine following in Fairgrieve's footsteps as a Geography teacher.

The information about Leonard in Wickenden is as below. This also makes a connection with James Fairgrieve:

Appointed by E B Cumberland in 1912 Leonard Brooks succeeded James Fairgrieve as the Endowed school’s Geography teacher. He was ‘… a writer of textbooks, an eminent Inspector of the London County Council and a Fellow and one time Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Geographical Society. In all this and as a Governor, in which capacity he is still with us, the School owes Mr. Brooks a great debt.’ (p75)

‘Early in 1916 the School was asked to join a new Cadet Battalion then being formed in the Borough of St Pancras; for various reasons that was not acceptable but it led to negotiations as a result of which the School threw in its lot with the 1st Cadet Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, City of London Regiment and constituted ‘D’ Company. Mr Leonard Brooks, the geography master, was an inspiring Captain and Company Commander …’ (p100)

‘Mr. Brooks went to the London County Council in 1920 and was almost immediately engaged with another ex-master, Mr. Beresford Ingram, in organising the new Day Continuation Schools.’ (p116)

During the later 1930s:

‘Partly an outside activity, and partly educational in keeping with the School’s reputation in the teaching of geography was the ‘adoption’ by the School of the S.S. Willesden. 

Mr. Leonard Brooks, then a Senior Inspector of the London County Council, was largely responsible for the ship adoption scheme and for William Ellis being one of the first four schools participating in it. The object was to bring geography ‘alive’ by following the course of the ship in its journeys and its trading – maintaining a chart of the ship’s movements, a logbook of progress, records of cargoes together with their origin, destination, and processing for shipment, and so on. … A steady correspondence between the Captain of the ship and the boys was a principal source of information and interest. 

 Files, charts and posters were kept in the Geography Room and were available there for inspection and use by any boy who wished. The association, first with Captain Anderson and then Captain Martin, was a very happy one for they were good letter writers and went to great pains to answer the host of questions sent them, and in arranging visits to the Willesden; talking with the crew was of special interest to the boys on these occasions. The owners presented a large model of the S.S. Willesden to the School, a gift greatly appreciation. 

Just before the outbreak of war, the P&O liner Stratheden was adopted as a second ship..'

The Stratheden seems to have survived the war: here is a picture of a school visit to the ship led or accompanied by AP Smith in the early 1950s, a revival of the ship adoption scheme, at the least 'in spirit'.



More images to come of the Geography classrooms at WES in due course in a separate blog post... they are really excellent.

Leonard will have taught in the dedicated Geography room at Allcroft Road. 

On the subject of the room itself, Wickenden says the following:

‘… in 1913 the additions were made to the Allcroft Road buildings, namely a special geography room and two new classrooms. … The geography room was the first of its kind in the country, and owed its conception and design to the enthusiasm of Mr. James Fairgrieve, then geography master at the School and a pioneer in modern methods of teaching that subject. He had put forward his proposals first in 1911, and one must applaud the business-like dispatch which saw the three rooms ready for use at the beginning of the 1913-14 school year, the London County Council having provided a building grant of £2,500 towards the cost.’

I am hopeful that there may be another image of Leonard forthcoming as Chris sent details of my request round in a newsletter. The group photo above is currently the only one I have.

Image credit: Balchin's Centenary volume of the GA - the first Hundred Years

Update July 2021

In July I was able to go up to Solly Street and head into the archives, and found that there was a pallet of boxes from the William Ellis School, where Leonard taught.

  These were later catalogued.

What I did find was a copy of the World by Leonard Brooks which appeared to have been used by Leonard himself, which was exciting and a connection back to a previous President.

Poem for the Day

From Barrie Allen, featured in GA News in 1993/4

1951: A Sheffield Conference

L Dudley Stamp welcomed delegates to Sheffield for the GA conference in 1951.
It's been excellent to see Sheffield back as a regular conference venue again more recently, as my home city.
It was pleasing to see delegates arriving from a number of different countries this time round as well.

Reference

Garnett, Alice, and T. W. Brown. “THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF TEACHERS OF GEOGRAPHY, SHEFFIELD, AUGUST, 1951.” Geography, vol. 36, no. 4, 1951, pp. 221–231. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563129.

Sir Clements Markham - a detour

While researching the early period of the GA, the name Clements Markham kept appearing.
He was not particularly linked with the GA, but would certainly have spent some time working with other GA Presidents.
The first pictures shows Markham aged 25, when he was elected to the Royal Geographical Society. At the bottom is a picture of him later in life.
It's a reminder of the close links between the GA and the RGS (later the RGS-IBG) which have persisted from the early meetings of the GA, and the use of RGS premises following the war.
Clements Markham was the Honorary Secretary of the RGS from 1863-1888 and later President for a further 12 years.
The Royal Society provides further details on his impressive geographical credentials:

He was mainly responsible for organising the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–04, and for launching the polar career of Robert Falcon Scott, who named a peak Mount Markham in Antarctica in his honour.

Markham began his career as a Royal Naval cadet and midshipman, during which time he went to the Arctic with HMS Assistance in one of the many searches for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin. 

Markham served as a geographer to the India Office, and was responsible for the collection of cinchona plants from their native Peruvian forests, and their transplantation in India. By this means the Indian government acquired a home source from which quinine could be extracted. 

Markham also served as geographer to Sir Robert Napier's Abyssinian expeditionary force, and was present in 1868 at the fall of Magdala. 

The main achievement of Markham's RGS presidency was the revival at the end of the 19th century of British interest in Antarctic exploration, after a 50-year interval. He had strong and determined ideas about how the National Antarctic Expedition should be organised, and fought hard to ensure that it was run primarily as a naval enterprise, under Scott's command. To do this he overcame hostility and opposition from much of the scientific community. In the years following the expedition he continued to champion Scott's career, to the extent of disregarding or disparaging the achievements of other contemporary explorers. 

He was also linked with the Hakluyt Society.

This film from the BFI shows the visit of the President of Peru to the RGS, and laying a wreath at Markham's memorial outside the entrance.

References

Image credit - public domain
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw08208/Sir-Clements-Robert-Markham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clements_Markham

https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/s/rs/people/fst00055875 - Royal Society
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/2898f105-6ee9-4a79-8554-b01a8b5a3c51

Memorial - image taken from Dr. Ursula Rack's blog https://arcticandantarctic.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/fellow-of-the-royal-geographical-society-in-london/

Thought for the Day

From the GA President for 1936.

How shall we teach Geography?

The Spring Conference in 1946 included another debate about pedagogy and curriculum design in school geography, something which has been talked about for as long as I can remember during my career, and even back then was a hot topic.

The sequencing of what to teach and when was important. Also considered the knowledge that students needed to be introduced to.



For a more up to date view on Curriculum, check out Paula Owens and Alan Kinder's article in the Autumn 2019 issue of 'Teaching Geography', which connects this with the new OFSTED framework in a creative way. Free to download by journal subscribers.

References

E. M. C., et al. “HOW SHALL WE TEACH GEOGRAPHY ? Report of Discussion at the Caernarvon Spring Conference.” Geography, vol. 31, no. 3, 1946, pp. 116–119. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563884

1950: Professor Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp, CBE

Updated October 2023

Another geographical great was President this year. One whose work is still referenced today.

Just two years after H. J. Fleure, we had another geographical 'big hitter'.

Professor (Laurence) Dudley Stamp was one of the leading lights in geography of the 20th Century, and his work is still referenced today, and some of his books are still in print and available to purchase.

He was prolific in his output, and served on a great many committees and supported the work of many different organisations. He was a real globe-trotter in an era when aircraft began to open up the world to those who could afford to use them - or who had their flights paid for.

Stamp held numerous influential posts, and had tremendous energy to publicise the importance of Geography.

He was born in 1898 in Catford, London and died in 1966 in Mexico City. A life very well lived, but which still ended a little prematurely.

He was the youngest of seven children, and his older brother was Josiah Stamp, who was President of the GA in 1936, who has his own post on this blog. 

I presume these are the only brothers to have been GA Presidents. I wonder whether that will ever happen again. I don't think my brother will be applying...

Stamp saw active service during the First World War, as had other Presidents in the early part of the 20th Century. This period of the GA's history is well worth further investigation I would say by those who have the appropriate connections.

The first mention of Dudley Stamp that I came across in connection with the GA is from 1924, when he is mentioned in 'The Geographical Teacher' as having started a new GA branch in Burma. 
At the time he was Professor of Geology and Geography at the University of Rangoon. 
This was an early foray into the work overseas carried on now, through the auspices of the International SIG of the GA and others.

Dudley Stamp was also Chief Advisor of Rural Land Use, Ministry of Agricultural between 1942 and 1955. He was appointed Commander, Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in 1946. He was Professor of Social Geography between 1948 and 1958 at the London School of Economics (another former President with a strong connection to that institution which was co-founded by a previous GA President)

He was President of the International Geographic Union between 1952 and 1956 

He was member of the Royal Commission on Common Land between 1955 and 1958.

He was appointed a Knight in January 1965, the year before his death, while he was President of the Royal Geographical Society, and later the IBG.

He inspired Bill Mead: another former GA President, who I shall come on to later, and who referred to a lecture that he attended given by Dudley Stamp on the country of Finland, which led to his own lifelong interest in Scandinavia which was a real feature of his own Presidency.

The Land Use Survey that Dudley Stamp initiated was an important aspect of the GA's public facing work during this time, work which continues today. The GA led on several large national projects which will feature on the blog.

For more on this work, it is worth getting hold of the book that recorded the findings.
Data from this survey can also still be accessed by those in Higher or Further Education via Edina. Thanks to Edina for pursuing this for me.
https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/environment/data_information/dudleystamp.htm - more details

1930s Land Utilisation Survey of Britain (Dudley Stamp)

You can see the Scottish sheets on the National Library of Scotland Mapping site. They look hand drawn, which is excellent.

G. R. Crone in his chronology of the 20th Century growth of Geography says of the maps that they



Dudley Stamp's rather good Presidential Address was on the theme of "Some neglected aspects of geography".


In it, he explores the foundations of the subject, and the development of exploration.

I liked a definition of exploration that he referred to at the time:

"Exploration at this period [earlier in the century] has been defined as the first discovery of new lands by a white man, preferably an English man, and only really authentic if sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society"

He referenced a previous GA President: Hugh Robert Mill early in the address, along with A. J. Herbertson.
He was concerned with the work of P. W Bryan's work 'Man's adaptation of Nature". He described the focus on 'cultural landscapes' as a 'short-cut', which led to 'facile correlations'.

Stamp provided his own definition of geography as "the study of the earth as the home of man".

He also waded into the idea of research in the classroom.

"How soon dare we introduce into our teaching.... the findings of research workers knowing that there is always the possibility that their results may not be confirmed by later investigations".

He also gave some nice examples of textbooks being out of date. He referred to a book that was still being used in the 1930s in schools which had been published in 1864 and was in its 122nd printing. The book stated "the turnpike roads of England are generally in good repair". The idea of textbooks being up to date is still an issue now.

Here's an image of Stamp from the 1940s
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/4113983031/in/photolist-7gBb8U-7gxePV-fjt8aX-fjt8ex-fjt8at


In the 1950s, Stamp said he was still being asked "by biologists, when you geographers are going to make your mind up about continental drift". He wondered about the truth of some aspects of this theory, and in 1931, also mentioned weather fronts (a new idea at the time from Bergeron) as being contentious for a while, but then accepted.
It was interesting hearing him talk about the early plans for commercial flights to the USA.

He also mentions the neglect of the globe as the best way of teaching about the world's continuity.

"It is appropriate that the opening of the new HQ of the Geographical Association at Sheffield should have been marked by the presentation of a globe to adorn the library"

Where is this I wonder?

Stamp wrote a great many books during his long career.

One of his most famous book covers is shown here.
He was one of the founders of the New Naturalists series as well, which has wonderful illustrated covers.

Thanks to Brendan Conway for providing the following additional detail:

Dudley Stamp was also president of the International Geographical Union 1952–56. When the IGU met in London in 1964 he engineered a particularly high profile for the subject with this set of stamps. The themes chosen for the abstract images were curious, to say the least. It is also interesting that he should get a STAMP of course as his contribution.

I managed to get hold of some copies of the stamps via eBay for my own growing Geographical archive. I will bring them along in 2020.

Thanks also to Steve Brace for also pointing out that L Dudley Stamp appeared on 'Desert Island Discs' - sadly only a brief extract remains of Stamp being interviewed by Roy Plomley.

He may be the only Geographer to have had that privilege.

This was broadcast in 1963, and allowed Stamp to explain his Land Use Survey and the pressures on land and the use of chemicals (in the era of Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring', and also overfishing of the oceans. Good to see that his Desert Island luxury was wine.

A year earlier he had been honoured by Poland.


Stamp was also a very prolific author of geography books.


His most significant book in terms of influence and market share was 'The World'.
This was the textbook used in many schools during the 1930s, 40s and beyond, and Rex Walford says that
"Stamp is the only geography textbook writer to have sold a million copies of a single book".

So this set me off on a bit of a journey.
I thought that perhaps David Waugh's books must have sold a million, and wanted to see whether this had now changed.
I contacted a few people at Hodder, who were involved in the publication of the Key Geography series and also GAIA. This led to quite a few e-mails going backwards and forwards.
I shall share the results of this research in a future post on the blog.

I also discovered in April 2020 that the Herbertsons sold 1.4 million copies of their books in the early part of the century.


Here's my copy -  the book was in print for over 50 years.

Here's another copy of one of Stamp's books that I own. This one is called 'The Face of Britain" and is a good little read. You will find plenty of Stamp's books still in 2nd hand book shops. This book was published in 1940, and on the title page, Stamp is described as the:

Sir Ernest Cassel Reader in Economic Geography in the University of London (LSE)



There were several notable obituaries, including one published in the journal of the American Geographical Society, and another in the Geographical Journal (written by another former GA President Michael Wise)

Updated March 2020
Balchin's Centenary volume describes how Stamp was attending an International Geographical Union Regional Conference when he died in Mexico City, after 40 years of service to the GA.
He outlines how:
"with a flat in London, a main residence in Bude, Cornwall and a country cottage in British Columbia, Sir Dudley was a "global" geographer.... he once dropped in to a GA Executive meeting at the LSE between changing planes at Heathrow on his way from Stockholm to New York. "

I'd love to find out more about his life and travels. He certainly presaged the sort of travelling which we all became used to before the coronavirus put a halt to that in March 2020.

References

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley_Stamp

Source of the main image above - other image of Desert Island Discs copyright BBC.

Stamp, L. Dudley. “SOME NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF GEOGRAPHY. Address to the Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 36, no. 1, 1951, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563084.

Walford, R. (ed) (1997), Land-Use UK: A Survey for the 21st Century. Sheffield: Geographical Association.

https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/environment/data_information/dudleystamp.htm

https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6tb5p4p - Biography with details of Stamp

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

Obituary:

George H. T. Kimble. “Obituary: Laurence Dudley Stamp 1898-1966.” Geographical Review, vol. 57, no. 2, 1967, pp. 246–249. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/213163.

If anyone has any further details on Dudley Stamp and his legacy, please get in touch.

Updated December 2019

1961: NATHAN, LORD. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE BUSINESS WORLD TO-DAY.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 109, no. 5059, 1961, pp. 516–526. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41369050. - a nice comment following the piece, which looks at the value of geography to the world of business and for those seeking employment following their graduation....

Updated November 2020

Dudley Stamp Memorial Award was set up in 1967, the year after Stamp's death to support geographers in the early stages of their careers to travel.

It was featured in the latest bulletin (Spring 2021) for RGS Fellows. 

Lily Bradshaw has put together a StoryMap all about the Award. See it here.

Sir Lawrence Dudley Stamp (1898-1966) was an internationally renowned British geographer who championed the study of geography in universities and schools. In recognition of his services to education and science, the British National Committee for Geography established the Dudley Stamp Memorial fund from which the award is given. Sir Dudley Stamp had a strong belief in the value of international research and co-operation, and this ethos continues through the award today.

The Dudley Stamp Memorial Award supports research across the whole spectrum of geography from the intersections between sovereignty, territory, and development in Myanmar to the relationship between fluvial sediment characteristics and floodplain initiation in North America.

Updated August 2021

The RGS-IBG Bulletin for Autumn 2021 has arrived.

Later this year (2021), there is a session on the 22nd of November at the RGS on the Relief Models of Sir L Dudley Stamp.

The description of the session says that the society holds a collection of relief models which represent a part of Stamp's life's work and of "the creative and engaging ways which defined his approach to the teaching of geography throughout the mid-20th century".

There was also an update on this year's funded trips from the Stamp Memorial Fund.

Updated August 2022

An obituary for L Dudley Stamp.

Here's the cover of the Memorial Service which was held at King's College London on the 3rd of November 1966. Located in the GA Archives.

Updated August 2023

From the papers of Frank and Charles Fenner.  Virologists linked with eradication of smallpox.

Referring to serving on the BAAS Section E Committee.

2 to 3 September 1937, Nottingham, BAAS Meeting

Got a note that I was on the Section C (Geology) committee, and I believe I am now on Section E (Geography) committee also. 

Met Dudley Stamp, who had very kindly had me elected a Vice President of Section E (Geography) and asked me to their Section Dinner on Monday evening as their guest. Since I last saw him, he has visited every country in South America, and (at invitation of USA) inspected every state of that country, and (for British Government?) has inspected Nigeria re soil conservation, and who has now been invited to visit and report on the mapping of India and China. 

He is a smart fellow, and an indefatigable traveller. 

But I fancy it’s a fine thing for an ambitious man if he has the good fortune to live in London and has the further good fortune to have so influential an uncle as Sir Josiah. 

We talked of world geography and of Australia’s north and soils, and soil utilization, and culture patterns in England. 

He stresses (as I have lately in these notes) that the land pattern of England is something that has evolved through 2,000 years of struggle between man and nature, roads, rivers, products, traditions, and cannot be lightly set aside by the whim of thoughtless 'town planners' who have never allowed these things to enter their heads. 

And he spoke of opening up the waste lands of the world, and of us in Australia having to give Australia to Indians. 

And I said Cui Bono? If lands are productive, population increases, and the pressure becomes as great as ever. Why should we try to fill up the earth with struggling people. 

Look at Fiji. To whom the good? 

Why indeed should we try to increase the world’s population at all?

Source:

https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p34751/mobile/ch17s13.html

Updated September 2023

A point made following a lecture in 1961 by another GA President: Lord Nathan of Churt:

"I feel that I cannot let this occasion pass without expressing thanks on behalf of the professional geographers for the very able way in which Lord Nathan (who has come to us as it were from outside with a very wide experience) has put before this gathering the crucial problems of the geographer and his position in the world. I stand before you as a Professor of Geography who has never had a lecture in geography, for the simple reason that it was not a subject of Honours standard in our universities at the time when I was at college. So I had to take my training in other subjects, and came into geography because of a very deep conviction that there is an important work to be done in the application of what we now know as geographical principles to world and everyday events. It is a very great joy to me to hear, after these years of struggle, that point of view being vindicated from the lips of one so eloquent and so eminent as our lecturer this evening. I would say this in reply to questions which have been put : geography is, as you have rightly said, Sir, a point of view, a training which I think the late Field Marshal Smuts would have called a 'holistic' training, which enables one to take a view which is the view of the whole, and in that sense we do try to take in all factors which are concerned. 

In a way I was delighted to hear of the five geographers from Cambridge who have taken jobs other than as geographers. I hope they will take the geographical point of view into their respective spheres, which is after all what we want. In the old days a man who got a degree in classics did not therefore get employment as a Greek or Latin scholar. He went into administration and showed us how to run the government, because of his background in a good discipline. We like to think of geography to-day as giving that broad point of view which is a real training in citizen ship. I feel, Sir, that you have put before us very eloquently indeed that real objective. Geography as a discipline in the university to-day fits its students for a very wide range of posts (not necessarily called geographers; probably in most cases."

Source:

NATHAN, LORD. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE BUSINESS WORLD TO-DAY.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 109, no. 5059, 1961, pp. 516–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41369050. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

See also a recent addition to the LSE blog - all about the Land Utilisation Survey

Also a character reference following his passing. 

From the Journal of Glaciology in 1967

Copyright © International Glaciological Society 1967

This Society has lost one of its original members by the sudden death of Sir Dudley Stamp in Mexico City, at the age of 68, while attending a committee of the World Land Utilization Survey in August last.

A graduate of King’s College in the University of London, as a geographer he had held his Chair at the London School of Economics for many years until he resigned some years ago to devote himself to the wider international field. Like many others, he began as a geologist. Many younger glaciologists will have seen him in action when, as President of the Royal Geographical Society at the time of the 1964 meeting of the International Geographical Congress in London, the duties of representing the host country frequently fell to him.

His lively and genial personality, reinforced by a supreme breadth of knowledge about the world and those who wrote about it, by a formidable energy and capacity for work, zest for travel and an accurate memory, was indeed widely appreciated. 

His accomplishment in developing studies of land utilization, starting from the great survey of Britain that he initiated in the depths of the 1931 depression, was justly honoured.

He was one of the first members to join this Society, and while his travels in his later years more commonly took him to the great cities of the world rather than the silent ice, he retained his sympathy with the aims of a new and developing branch of the earth sciences. It was characteristic of him that his interests should extend well beyond the particular field in which he was active. Many have benefited from his interest and advice and on more than one occasion this Society has been grateful for his influential assistance.

A lovely piece.

He travelled widely with his wife Elsa.

Here's one of the books they co-wrote.

Here's an analysis of his work from a piece in Science Direct.

Lawrence Dudley Stamp was born in London in 1898 and admitted to King's College at the age of 15 to study botany and geology. 

Following graduation he joined the Royal Engineers and served briefly in France during World War I. 

Illustrating his exuberance for the subject and his phenomenal work rate, he gained his doctorate in geology in 1921 while simultaneously taking the London BA in geography. He was then employed as a geologist in Burma (Myanmar). 

While stationed there, he was appointed as the first professor of geography in Rangoon in 1923, where he taught until 1926. 

In Burma, Stamp first specialized in tropical geography. In one of his first books – The Vegetation of Burma from an Ecological Standpoint – he enrolled researchers from of the Indian Forest Service to collect data and adopted a classic chorographic method to describe the country. 

Drawing upon the ecological theories of A. G. Tansely and a model for the systematic classification of natural regions developed by the geographer A. J. Herbertson, his technique examined the causes and the interrelations of phenomena in the landscape, primarily in terms of climate and geology. While he would continue to innovate – he was among the first geographers, for example, to promote the use of aerial photography – this approach to the analysis of land-use and resource management would characterize his career. 

His land-use survey technique and representation first developed in Burma, was later scaled up to encompass Britain in the 1930s, and underwrote his ideas for a world land-use survey sponsored by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) he directed in the 1960s.

A postcolonial reading of Stamp's work in tropical geography can align his interests with the demands of the colonial state. His paper on Burma published in 1933 in The Geographical Review concluded that the country's ‘wasteland’ – which he depicted as unoccupied – was open for further colonization: “Upcountry one is struck by the immense areas of cultivable land which remain waste for want of cultivators” (Stamp, 1933: 87). He could also indulge his reader with a dash of adventure and hint of the exotic: “The Salween still indulges on the quiet in the time honoured practice of head-hunting and their territory has been placed out of bounds to Europeans” (Stamp, 1933: 83). 

Most of Stamp's work, however, was very applied in orientation. This was well reflected in his stewardship of Commercial Geography which he inherited from the economic geographer G. G. Chisholm. This is not so much a book but a database of commodities and the ever expanding resource frontier required by a colonial empire. At this time, it is arguable that Stamp – notably with his work on the ‘colonial soil’ – participated in a school of Western intellectuals who mobilized science in an attempt to guarantee the effective management of imperial sources.

In 1926, Stamp returned to England to take up a post at the London School of Economics (LSE). The LSE positioned him in a metropolitan network that supported a career at home and abroad. 

During this period, Stamp consolidated his activities as a successful author of popular geography textbooks. For example, he collaborated with his wife Elsa Rea to produce an innovative New Age series for junior schools, based around photographs taken during his world travels. 

'The World', first prepared for the school market in India in the mid-1920s, was adapted widely throughout the British Empire and, over 40 years, sold over a million copies, running to some 17 editions. 

His work on school textbooks for both the national and colonial marketplace enhanced his association with the Geographical Association which he used to build support for the first Land Utilisation Survey of Great Britain. 

The idea of a land-use survey of Britain had been an objective of the Royal Geography Society from the late 1880s, when the survey “…was regarded as a project of Imperial importance” (Stamp, 1931: 42). Drawing upon his work in the tropics, Stamp mobilized a chorographical technique to devise six categories of land use for the purpose of the survey: meadow and permanent grass, arable land, heath land, and moor land or rough hill pasture forests and woodland, gardens, and unproductive agricultural land. This survey – which began in 1930 – was a huge undertaking but by framing it in the context of both geographic and civic education, Stamp was able to enrol school children and their teachers to collect primary data on land use, and transfer this data by hand onto 6″ to 1 mile paper maps. 

The results are summarized in The Land of Britain: Its Use and Misuse. H. C. Darby concluded it was the greatest achievement of British geography. The survey success and its immediate value for agricultural and physical planning during World War II and after was Stamp's entrée into public service in Britain.

As questions around physical planning and issues of environment and habitat management have intensified in Britain, Stamp's work on the Land Utilisation Survey remains highly regarded. 

But as one of the stalwarts of regional geography, the paradigm shifts in the 20 following this death – first toward quantification and then to radical geography – have often undermined his reputation among contemporary geographers. 

In 1974, when David Harvey characterized geography's history as a shift from a concern with empire into “…the technics and mechanics of urban, regional and environmental management guided by a principles of benevolence and reformism…” Stamp could well have been his model (Harvey, 1974: 20).

Ron Johnston argued that Stamp's promotion of applied geography defined geographers “…as information gathers and synthesisers who stood outside the political process within which planning goals were formulated and pursued” (Johnston 1979: 30). 

Even one of his warmest observers H. C. Darby conceded that his approach to geography was firmly pragmatic: “…it was said that he had a tidy mind and a passion for facts” (Darby 1983: 20).

These summaries are more problematic than first assumed. In its various forms, versions of ‘applied geography’ had always been central to the activities of the state. They came into their ascendancy in post-war Britain, when the increased state intervention in the economy and environment presented geographers with innumerable opportunities to identify practical applications for geographical techniques and expertise. 

In this context, Stamp saw applied geography as the application of geography for the public good. Any claim that Stamp saw geographers as ‘outside’ the political process cannot be sustained. 

Stamp was part of a group of intellectuals in the 1930s that included Max Nicholson, Vaughan Cornish, and Julian Huxley who foresaw the role science would play in the planning and reconstruction of Britain. 

Geography for Stamp was a matter for action and intervention. 

During World War II, he served as vice chairperson of the Scott Committee, which set out the framework for the establishment of the town and country planning policy. He was also employed as Chief Adviser in Rural Land Utilisation at the Ministry of Agriculture. In the post-war period Stamp served a member or chairperson of four major official committees – Land Use in Rural Areas, Nature Conservancy, Common Land, and National Resources. 

Undoubtedly he played a key role in shaping the post-war spatial settlement in Britain. 

It is also clear in this period that he revised his perspective on the Global South. His work in tropical geography turned from a concern with colonial interests to issues related to the ‘developing world’. His collaboration with the International Geographical Union (IGU) and UNESCO in particular presented him with new challenges and in their own way are reflected in clear pleas for global responsibility in Geographies of Life and Death and criticism of neocolonialism in his book The Developing World.

Toward the end of his life, Stamp reacted strongly against quantification which he saw a major challenge to applied and regional geography. 

As president of the Institute of British Geographers (IBG), he controversially compared Peter Haggett to a theosophist and concluded that “Quantification has many points in common with Communism: it has become a religion to its devotees, its golden calf is the computer” (Stamp 1965: 18). 

Rather than this path, he argued for public engagement over academic specialization. He also saw geography as a holistic discipline, the unification of the physical and human worlds. 

Despite the growing challenge then emerging from spatial science, Stamp's profile as Britain's foremost public geographer was assured. 

In 1965 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. This honor extended to an invitation on to the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) flagship radio program ‘Desert Island Discs’ where guests are asked to imagine which music and texts they would take with them as if cast away on a tropical island. As he had done with audiences all his life, Stamp charmed the public with a discussion on his work with the world land-use survey, the demographic pressure on land resources, the use and abuse of toxic chemicals in intensive farming, the possibilities of land reclamation, and marveled at the possible future cultivation of the sea's harvests. 

The radio show confirmed his vivid interests in environmental issues and his wide geographical imagination. It seems that throughout his life Stamp epitomized the motto of his old regiment, the Royal Engineers – Ubique (everywhere).

In spite of the turn toward continental social theory in Anglo-American geography, Stamp's contribution to geography remains more central to the discipline than often realized. Stamp exemplified a philosophy about geographical knowledge which located it at the interface of pubic service, education, and civic responsibility. He understood the central role that geography played in the organization of social, environmental, and economic life and was able to articulate those ideas to broad and mixed constituency: school children, the general public, and policymakers. 

He helped create a geographical discourse which continues to frame many debates about the role of the discipline, particularly those concerning the application of geographic information system (GIS), remote sensing, and land-use studies to matters of public policy.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/land-utilization

Updated October 2023

He was the son of Charles Stamp and Clara Jane Evans. He married Else Clara Rea, daughter of Arthur Unett Rea, on 5 May 1923

http://www.thepeerage.com/p58251.htm

He was member of the Royal Commission on Common Land between 1955 and 1958. Another possible avenue for research.

https://pubs.cif-ifc.org/doi/pdf/10.5558/tfc26138-2

Some probate information.

Geologist and Geographer
1925 Geologist (sailing from China to USA)
1925 Geologist (sailing from Hong Kong to Vancouver
1931 Professor (sailing from UK to Jamaica)
1931 Professor (sailing from Columbia to UK)
1933 Professor (sailing from UK to USA)
1934 Professor (sailing from Trinidad to USA)
1936 Professor (sailing from UK to Spain)
1939 University Reader & Doctor of Science - Company Director (Foodstuffs & Publisher)
1942 University Reader (probate of mother)
1947 Professor (arrival in Alaska, USA)
1949 (not readable) sailing from UK to Canada)
1951 Professor (sailing from Canada to England)
1952 Professor (sailing from USA to England)
1954 Professor (sailing from UK to India)
1956 Professor (sailing from USA to England)
1957 Professor (sailing from Fiji to Honolulu)
1959 Professor (sailing from USA to England)

Plenty of travelling...

Stamp is buried in Bude, Conrnwall.

1950: Ellis W Heaton

Occasionally on the blog, we feature people who were never GA Presidents, but gave a lot to the Association - after all, not all those who work for the GA can take up the Presidential role.

It seems like Ellis Heaton did a great deal to support the Association, as do the many hundreds of activists / volunteers / SIG and committee members, branch officials and Trustees who give of their time voluntarily to support the work that we do.

Here's the obituary of Ellis Heaton, written by H J Fleure, and published in 1950.

Reference
Fleure, H. J. “OBITUARY: Ellis W. Heaton.” Geography, vol. 35, no. 3, 1950, pp. 194–194. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563034

1950: New Sheffield HQ - official opening

Source:
“GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION: THE OPENING OF THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND SOME FUTURE PROJECTS.” Geography, vol. 35, no. 4, 1950, pp. 257–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563062.

Updated March 2020

As David Linton said, in 1965
At the end of April 1950 it ended its twenty-year association with the Municipal High School of Commerce in Manchester and moved to Sheffield to enjoy the hospitality of the City Libraries. This was also the time for the arrival of Marguerita Oughton, who will be mentioned in a future post.

Linton, David L. “Miss Marguerita Oughton: An Appreciation.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 2, 1965, pp. 172–176. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565934. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

I wonder where the "large globe" ended up?

1949: Sir Harry Alexander Fanshawe Lindsay KCIE CBE

Updated October 2023

Sir Harry Lindsay was a Colonial administrator, who was connected with India, and worked to develop aspects of the Commonwealth, which grew from the end of Empire.

He was another St. Paul's Old Boy and was also educated at Oxford University, as were many previous Presidents.

A Wikipedia article provided the following information, under CC license:

In 1910 Lindsay became Under-Secretary to the government of Bengal. He moved to the Commerce and Industry Department of the Government of India in 1912.

In 1916 he was Director-General of Commercial Intelligence in Calcutta and in 1922 Secretary to the Government of India, Commerce Dept. In 1923 he became Government of India Trade Commissioner in London. 

In 1919, he was knighted:

CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD. St. James's Palace, S.W. 

3rd June, 1919. 

The KING has been graciously pleased, on the occasion of His Majesty's Birthday, to make the following promotions in, and appointments to, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire: — 'To be Knight Commanders of the Civil Division, of the said Most Excellent Order.

Harry Alexander Fanshawe Lindsay, Esq., Indian Civil Service, Director-General of Commercial Intelligence in India.

In 1923 he was delegate for India to the Economic Committee of the League of Nations. In 1934 he was appointed Director of the Imperial Institute, a post in which he remained until 1953.

He was GA President during this time.

Image credit: National Portrait Gallery

Described here:


Lindsay was Chairman of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts, editing the publication British Commonwealth Objectives in 1946. 

He was President of the Imperial Institute in the 1940s as well.

A vintage photograph from the time.

Lindsay was also president of the Royal Geographical Society (yet another President to have served with both organisations), and vice-president of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

Lindsay's presidential address was on 'Geography and the Museum'.

In it, he talked about the role that geography might play in the development of museums, even the one at the RGS, which he mentions at the start of his address.

There is a return here to the contested notions of geography as a science, which was a debate had throughout the early 20th Century, and aspects of this are still talked about now.

An interest in museums also connects him other former GA President, who were connected with museums:
1925 - John Linton Myres, who was linked with the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and
1929 - Sir Henry Lyons, who was a director of the Science Museum

He died on 2 March 1963, in Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom, at the age of 81.

I wasn't able to find much about what he did while GA President unfortunately.

References

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Lindsay - a brief entry, which doesn't say anything about his Geographical career - Edited to add his GA Presidency as always.

Lindsay, Harry. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE MUSEUM: ADDRESS TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION.” Geography, vol. 35, no. 1, 1950, pp. 1–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564519.

Portrait at NPG: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp79885/sir-harry-alexander-fanshawe-lindsay

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1943/mar/31/colonial-products-research-council

Mentioned in: https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/viewFile/232/245

Lindsay, Harry. “CULTURAL RELATIONS WITHIN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 96, no. 4756, 1947, pp. 6–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41364360.


Here's an image of Sir Harry Lindsay welcoming the Queen to an event at the Royal Society of Arts mentioned in the article above - when he served as President of the RSA.

Image of Lindsay from NPG under Creative Commons

Sir Harry Alexander Fanshawe Lindsay
by Walter Stoneman
bromide print, March 1943
NPG x165080© National Portrait Gallery, London

As always, I would be happy to hear from anyone who has further details on this President's particular contributions to the work of the GA. I have very little to go on for this entry which is one of the briefest.

You can buy a greetings card with his image on from the NPG if you so desire...

https://npgshop.org.uk/products/sir-harry-alexander-fanshawe-lindsay-npg-x165080-card

Dr. Hilda Ormsby

Updated October 2023

While researching the blog over the years, I have come across a whole range of interesting characters who have made a contribution to the development of geography and geography eduction.

From the LSE Flickr page.

Here is Dr Hilda Ormsby, in a striking image taken c1910

Dr Hilda Ormsby died on October 23rd 1973, a few days before her 96th birthday. (I like the tendency for significant geographers to live long lives).

She was born in 1877. 

She was the country's longest living geographer at the time one could argue, for she had been both a student of and then assistant to Sir Halford Mackinder, one of the founders of modern geography, a former director of the School, and its first Professor of Geography - and also a former GA President of course.

Indeed Mackinder tried out on her a draft of his famous book "Democratic Ideals and Reality."

Mackinder's successor as Professor was Rodwell Jones, who was the brother of Hilda Ormsby, and the brother-sister partnership is thought to have been the only one on a British department of geography. 

In 1931 she became one of the very few geography holders of the D.Sc (Econ) and was appointed Reader in 1932. 

Although she retired in 1940 she gave some lectures in the next two sessions whilst the School was in Cambridge. 

In both World Wars she served with Naval Intelligence. Many geographers put their analytical skills to good use at this time.

During the first she worked on terrain analysis, and in the second helped to prepare handbooks on France. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the School in 1962...' R.J. Harrison Church, LSE Magazine, November 1974, No48, p14

The LSE has a Prize named after George and Hilda Ormsby. This link with Prizes is important.

What would a Parkinson prize involve?


Source of the image:
IMAGELIBRARY/286
Persistent URL: archives.lse.ac.uk/dserve.exe?dsqServer=lib-4.lse.ac.uk&a...

Image link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/3983646216/in/photolist-cGh6nJ-pKnCbQ-aqZG3N-752ees-27ucW6-27tbt6-ncdewT-neg3Kr-nei3z3-nei1s7-ncbP5Q-ncdkam-byRuRo-negxP9-neeKnp-9B4qf5-25iHZpy-7eGKzo-24EKuGj-y7C36s/

Text linked with the image...

Updated October 2023

It seems her maiden name was Rodwell Jones... a familiar name... more detail here....

She also features in this book

Free download

https://epdf.tips/complex-locations-rgs-ibg-book-series.html

Thought for the Day

I've been using the first line of this quote for years without knowing the real source of it, and found it while researching some other GA Presidents earlier today.

Geography without fieldwork is like science without experiments; the ‘field’ is the geographic laboratory where young people experience at first hand landscapes, places, people and issues, and where they can learn and practice geographical skills in a real environment. Above all, fieldwork is enjoyable.

Bland, K., Chambers, B., Donert K. and Thomas, T. (1996) ‘Fieldwork’ in Bailey, P. and Fox, P. (eds) Geography Teacher's Handbook. Sheffield: GA, pp.165-76