Updated August 2023Professor Wooldridge was the first Professor of Geography at King's College, University of London, where he stayed for many years.
His name has already appeared on the blog ahead of his rise to the Presidency, having been associated with other Presidents in terms of publishing and other endeavours, and his name will reoccur with later Presidents too. He was also active in the fight against the suggestion of geography joining with Social Studies during the 1940s and keeping its own identity. There are other GA Presidents with links to King's College as well.
Some details here are taken from his Wikipedia entry - shared under CC license - we are getting close to the point where Wikipedia entries stop being provided for GA Presidents. Perhaps we need to contribute some more.
Sidney Wooldridge was born in Hornsey, North London in 1900, the younger son of a bank clerk. His early childhood was spent in Surrey, and his later schooling in North London, where he also took evening classes in geology. He read geology at King's College London (1918–1921), graduating with a first-class degree.
In the 1920s and 1930s Sidney Wooldridge lectured at King's on a combined geography and geology course with the London School of Economics (LSE).
In the Joint School of Geography, King's offered Geomorphology, Meteorology, Biogeography and the History of Geographical Discovery. During WWII this arrangement was disrupted by the evacuation of King's to Bristol requiring Wooldridge to teach human geography.
His conversion to geography complete, he became professor of geography at Birkbeck College, London in 1944, returning to King's in 1947 as its first professor of geography and remaining until his death in 1963.
He was described in a piece from the Royal Society as "the doyen of British geomorphologists and a great champion of field studies of all kinds".
In 1954. as President of the Geographical Association, his subject was ‘The status of geography and the role of field work’.
In his address he stressed the need for developing at an early stage ‘an eye for country’—i.e. the capacity to read and interpret a piece of country, an accomplishment distinct from mapreading in that the ground and not the map is the primary document. Only those who have seen him in action with a field class can fully appreciate his mastery of the power to impart this accomplishment.
On his skill as a teacher:
Wooldridge had remarkable qualities as a teacher. He had the capacity to transmit his enthusiasm for his subject and the gift of clear exposition. He had a pungency of phrase which delighted his audiences and at times he took pleasure in being as provocative as he could.
He enjoyed lecturing and gave freely of his time to universities, to training colleges, to field centres and to the Working Men’s College, Camden Town, with which he was for many years closely associated. In the words of a colleague writing in The , ‘it was his passion to bring to young and old the joy that comes from discovering for one’s self some new fact of landscape history and from fitting it into a developing pattern of new scientific knowledge’
Here is the announcement of his new post in 'Geography' in 1947
In 1949, he published an article 'On taking the 'GE' out of 'Geography'. This explored the status of physical geography (something which is still an issue for some - I remember some comments that many of the resources on the GA website were skewed towards what might be called 'human' topics.)
He also referred to the talk that was going on about the merging of history and geography, and the development of 'Social Studies' (something which has certainly been the case in the USA and some other curricula as well)
There were a few quotes in the article which are useful.
It was during this time that he became the President of the GA. He had already held posts on the Council and Executive and therefore joined a group of Presidents who had held a great many roles to support the Association.
Image courtesy of: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021
Used under Fair Use, another image is in Balchin's Centenary book.
Wooldridge was a founder-member of the Institute of British Geographers (1933) and was later IBG president (1949–50). He did not break completely with the RGS, serving on its council (1947–51).
More details on Wooldridge are contained in an article on the early days of the IBG, linked to here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/622270?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents
The following two images are taken from this source:
The Presidential address can be read on JSTOR for free with a free account.
Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
He started his address by explaining while regional geography is the real geography, despite the various different views.
This quote is a famous one...
He talks about the emphasis being placed on research work carried out overseas compared to work carried out in the UK, and this idea of 'otherwhereitis' is an interesting one.
Wooldridge also chaired the Field Studies Council in 1952. This was known as the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies at the time, before it became the FSC. I attended a special event to mark the FSC's 75th anniversary just before Christmas 2019.
The 'Wooldridge and Linton Model' of landscape evolution was dependent on the identification of remnants of three widely developed erosion surfaces. It was influential at the time, and is included in a range of textbooks. Linton read several papers to the IBG as well.
Wooldridge also collaborated with fellow King's alumnus (and GA President) L Dudley Stamp. Wooldridge's interest lay in relating early human settlement and land use to the physical landscape. In 1951 Stamp at LSE and Wooldridge at King's jointly edited London Essays in Geography. He also wrote with another GA President, S. H. Beaver.
He was also a major influence on another president Denys Brunsden, a student at King's College.
He described him as "a monumental presence".
His conference was described in this piece here.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1038/175198a0.pdf
Like L Dudley Stamp, Wooldridge married a King's geography student. He was a keen golfer and cricketer, a lay preacher (converting later to the Church of England and an amateur operetta enthusiast - shades of Rex Walford here.
He continued to work after a stroke in 1954.
He was made a CBE in 1954.
In 1957 he received the Royal Geographical Society's Victoria Medal and in 1959 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
His name has already appeared on the blog ahead of his rise to the Presidency, having been associated with other Presidents in terms of publishing and other endeavours, and his name will reoccur with later Presidents too. He was also active in the fight against the suggestion of geography joining with Social Studies during the 1940s and keeping its own identity. There are other GA Presidents with links to King's College as well.
Some details here are taken from his Wikipedia entry - shared under CC license - we are getting close to the point where Wikipedia entries stop being provided for GA Presidents. Perhaps we need to contribute some more.
Sidney Wooldridge was born in Hornsey, North London in 1900, the younger son of a bank clerk. His early childhood was spent in Surrey, and his later schooling in North London, where he also took evening classes in geology. He read geology at King's College London (1918–1921), graduating with a first-class degree.
In the 1920s and 1930s Sidney Wooldridge lectured at King's on a combined geography and geology course with the London School of Economics (LSE).In the Joint School of Geography, King's offered Geomorphology, Meteorology, Biogeography and the History of Geographical Discovery. During WWII this arrangement was disrupted by the evacuation of King's to Bristol requiring Wooldridge to teach human geography.
His conversion to geography complete, he became professor of geography at Birkbeck College, London in 1944, returning to King's in 1947 as its first professor of geography and remaining until his death in 1963.
He was described in a piece from the Royal Society as "the doyen of British geomorphologists and a great champion of field studies of all kinds".
In 1954. as President of the Geographical Association, his subject was ‘The status of geography and the role of field work’.
In his address he stressed the need for developing at an early stage ‘an eye for country’—i.e. the capacity to read and interpret a piece of country, an accomplishment distinct from mapreading in that the ground and not the map is the primary document. Only those who have seen him in action with a field class can fully appreciate his mastery of the power to impart this accomplishment.
On his skill as a teacher:
Wooldridge had remarkable qualities as a teacher. He had the capacity to transmit his enthusiasm for his subject and the gift of clear exposition. He had a pungency of phrase which delighted his audiences and at times he took pleasure in being as provocative as he could.
He enjoyed lecturing and gave freely of his time to universities, to training colleges, to field centres and to the Working Men’s College, Camden Town, with which he was for many years closely associated. In the words of a colleague writing in The , ‘it was his passion to bring to young and old the joy that comes from discovering for one’s self some new fact of landscape history and from fitting it into a developing pattern of new scientific knowledge’
Here is the announcement of his new post in 'Geography' in 1947
In 1949, he published an article 'On taking the 'GE' out of 'Geography'. This explored the status of physical geography (something which is still an issue for some - I remember some comments that many of the resources on the GA website were skewed towards what might be called 'human' topics.)
He also referred to the talk that was going on about the merging of history and geography, and the development of 'Social Studies' (something which has certainly been the case in the USA and some other curricula as well)
There were a few quotes in the article which are useful.
"Geography has never been the science of man, it is the science of land, of the Earth's surface"
(Sauer and Leighly)
It was during this time that he became the President of the GA. He had already held posts on the Council and Executive and therefore joined a group of Presidents who had held a great many roles to support the Association.
Image courtesy of: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021
Used under Fair Use, another image is in Balchin's Centenary book.
Wooldridge was a founder-member of the Institute of British Geographers (1933) and was later IBG president (1949–50). He did not break completely with the RGS, serving on its council (1947–51).
More details on Wooldridge are contained in an article on the early days of the IBG, linked to here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/622270?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents
The following two images are taken from this source:
The Presidential address can be read on JSTOR for free with a free account.
Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
He started his address by explaining while regional geography is the real geography, despite the various different views.
This quote is a famous one...
He talks about the emphasis being placed on research work carried out overseas compared to work carried out in the UK, and this idea of 'otherwhereitis' is an interesting one.
Wooldridge also chaired the Field Studies Council in 1952. This was known as the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies at the time, before it became the FSC. I attended a special event to mark the FSC's 75th anniversary just before Christmas 2019.
The 'Wooldridge and Linton Model' of landscape evolution was dependent on the identification of remnants of three widely developed erosion surfaces. It was influential at the time, and is included in a range of textbooks. Linton read several papers to the IBG as well.
Wooldridge also collaborated with fellow King's alumnus (and GA President) L Dudley Stamp. Wooldridge's interest lay in relating early human settlement and land use to the physical landscape. In 1951 Stamp at LSE and Wooldridge at King's jointly edited London Essays in Geography. He also wrote with another GA President, S. H. Beaver.
He was also a major influence on another president Denys Brunsden, a student at King's College.
He described him as "a monumental presence".
His conference was described in this piece here.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1038/175198a0.pdf
Like L Dudley Stamp, Wooldridge married a King's geography student. He was a keen golfer and cricketer, a lay preacher (converting later to the Church of England and an amateur operetta enthusiast - shades of Rex Walford here.
He continued to work after a stroke in 1954.
He was made a CBE in 1954.
In 1957 he received the Royal Geographical Society's Victoria Medal and in 1959 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
He died in 1963, the year I was born.
"The Status of Geography and the role of fieldwork" - Geography,. 40, p.73-83 (1955)
Image used under Fair Use from this Source
Bill Marsden
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/631169/mod_resource/content/1/geog_sk6_06t_5.pdf
Describes Wooldridge's concern about the divide between school and academic geography - an area also touched on by another President Andrew Goudie.
Wooldridge was to resurface as a key figure in the geography versus geographical education encounters of the post-war period. He was a trenchant peer critic. In 1950 he addressed the IBG and scorned the contentment of his audience with ‘agreeably titillating’ articles on subjects of minor interest which made ‘no claim whatsoever to scholarship’ (Stoddart, 1983, p. 5). To Wooldridge a firm physical basis was the sine qua non of a high quality geography. He claimed that the social/urban orientation of the subject was becoming too strong. Geography, he maintained, was about ‘place’ and not about ‘man’ (Graves, 1975, p. 56). On the educational front he abhorred the analogous post-war trends towards introducing social studies into the curriculum. These he blamed on geographical educationists. The tendencies threatened to take ‘the ge- out of geography’, as he put it (1949, pp. 9–18). Social studies would On Taking the Geography Out of Geographical Education Some Historical Pointers in Geography Page 7 of 15 ‘destroy the value of geography as an important medium of education’ asserted the Education Committee of the RGS (1950, p. 181), in a report reputedly the work of Wooldridge. Like Geikie, he argued that the priority in schools should be detailed fieldwork in the rural landscape, developing a ‘laboratory spirit and the careful, indeed minute study of limited areas’ (1955, p. 80)
Also a piece on the Britannica website:
https://kingscollections.org/catalogues/kclca/collection/w/10wo50-1
Image: 'The Spirit and Purpose of Geography' - pictured at Charney Manor Conference 2017 - image by Alan Parkinson shared under CC license
Update - from a piece on Marguerita Oughton - March 2020
In the early summer schools Miss Oughton played a more direct and personal part. The first, at Rhoose, Glamorgan, with Dr. Margaret Davies in 1952, was a vigorous introduction to course organization that left her with a conviction that there are few things that the Association can do for many of its members that are better worth while than the provision of practical courses in fieldwork and field teaching methods in our own countryside. This conviction was enhanced by the stimulating experience of assisting the late Professor Wooldridge at a summer school at Pulborough in the Sussex Weald in the following year. Of this I was to hear a good deal in my own home not many weeks later from Wooldridge himself. He confessed to being "much impressed by that young woman", who had obviously handled him, as she had handled any difficult members of the party, with firmness and sympathy, and had surprised him with what he called an "unfeminine capacity for administrative detail." It is not difficult to detect here a note of admiration and affection on Wooldridge5 s part that remained with him in some measure till his death.
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.
In 1980 the Institute of British Geographers marked the fortieth anniversary of Structure, Surface and Drainage in South-East England by the publication of The Shaping of Southern England, a collection of papers which both emphasised the importance of the work, and showed how dated it had become. Fundamentally, the 'Wooldridge and Linton Model' was based on the view that the south-east region had been tectonically stable except for two brief periods, in the Upper Cretaceous and the mid-Tertiary. Subsequent work has shown that this view is far too simplistic, throwing much of the interpretation of cycles of landscape evolution into doubt.
(Source: Wikipedia)
He is quoted in this extract from a piece by Rex Walford (another GA President)
"'Go out into the field, for through the soles of your boots shall ye learn' . That somewhat simplistic dictum was often quoted to me in my school days, by a geography teacher ever eager for his pupils to have fieldwork experience. We clocked up the miles on field trips with missionary zeal, anxiously believing that virtue would accrue in large quantities if the hike was more than six miles and we came home raw-soled and properly exhausted. In a generation nurtured on the philosophy of the Le Play Society, inspired by the example of S. W. Wooldridge, and receptive to the outdoor exploits of the Baden-Powell organisations, field teaching and the development of an 'eye for country' became the Holy Grail for many geographers from the twenties to the sixties."
Rex Walford, 1984
Research is something that Sidney Wooldridge felt was particular important, and felt the association needed to both continue to support it, and be involved in it.
References
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_William_Wooldridge
1938 article: Wooldridge, S. W. “TOWN AND RURAL PLANNING. THE PHYSICAL FACTORS IN THE PROBLEM.” Geography, vol. 23, no. 2, 1938, pp. 90–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40561780.
A KEY REFERENCE:
Royal Society Biographical Memoirs publication: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021
On taking the 'Ge' out of 'Geography' - https://www.jstor.org/stable/40562793 (1949)
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 - source of the image above
Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
Wooldridge, S. W. “THE PHYSIQUE OF THE SOUTH WEST.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 4, 1954, pp. 231–242. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564986
(Source: Wikipedia)
He is quoted in this extract from a piece by Rex Walford (another GA President)
"'Go out into the field, for through the soles of your boots shall ye learn' . That somewhat simplistic dictum was often quoted to me in my school days, by a geography teacher ever eager for his pupils to have fieldwork experience. We clocked up the miles on field trips with missionary zeal, anxiously believing that virtue would accrue in large quantities if the hike was more than six miles and we came home raw-soled and properly exhausted. In a generation nurtured on the philosophy of the Le Play Society, inspired by the example of S. W. Wooldridge, and receptive to the outdoor exploits of the Baden-Powell organisations, field teaching and the development of an 'eye for country' became the Holy Grail for many geographers from the twenties to the sixties."
Rex Walford, 1984
Research is something that Sidney Wooldridge felt was particular important, and felt the association needed to both continue to support it, and be involved in it.
‘IF THE ASSOCIATION were to turn its back on research geography, there would
indeed be small hope of engaging and retaining the interest and support of the
university geographers’
(Wooldridge, 1955, p. 75)
References
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_William_Wooldridge
1938 article: Wooldridge, S. W. “TOWN AND RURAL PLANNING. THE PHYSICAL FACTORS IN THE PROBLEM.” Geography, vol. 23, no. 2, 1938, pp. 90–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40561780.
A KEY REFERENCE:
Royal Society Biographical Memoirs publication: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021
On taking the 'Ge' out of 'Geography' - https://www.jstor.org/stable/40562793 (1949)
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 - source of the image above
Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
Wooldridge, S. W. “THE PHYSIQUE OF THE SOUTH WEST.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 4, 1954, pp. 231–242. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564986
"The Status of Geography and the role of fieldwork" - Geography,. 40, p.73-83 (1955)
Image used under Fair Use from this Source
Bill Marsden
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/631169/mod_resource/content/1/geog_sk6_06t_5.pdf
Describes Wooldridge's concern about the divide between school and academic geography - an area also touched on by another President Andrew Goudie.
Wooldridge was to resurface as a key figure in the geography versus geographical education encounters of the post-war period. He was a trenchant peer critic. In 1950 he addressed the IBG and scorned the contentment of his audience with ‘agreeably titillating’ articles on subjects of minor interest which made ‘no claim whatsoever to scholarship’ (Stoddart, 1983, p. 5). To Wooldridge a firm physical basis was the sine qua non of a high quality geography. He claimed that the social/urban orientation of the subject was becoming too strong. Geography, he maintained, was about ‘place’ and not about ‘man’ (Graves, 1975, p. 56). On the educational front he abhorred the analogous post-war trends towards introducing social studies into the curriculum. These he blamed on geographical educationists. The tendencies threatened to take ‘the ge- out of geography’, as he put it (1949, pp. 9–18). Social studies would On Taking the Geography Out of Geographical Education Some Historical Pointers in Geography Page 7 of 15 ‘destroy the value of geography as an important medium of education’ asserted the Education Committee of the RGS (1950, p. 181), in a report reputedly the work of Wooldridge. Like Geikie, he argued that the priority in schools should be detailed fieldwork in the rural landscape, developing a ‘laboratory spirit and the careful, indeed minute study of limited areas’ (1955, p. 80)
Also a piece on the Britannica website:
According to a leading British geographer, Sidney William Wooldridge, in The Geographer as Scientist: Essays on the Scope and Nature of Geography (1956, reprinted 1969), regional geography aimed
According to this view, all geographers—whatever their systematic interests in particular classes of phenomena—should be regional specialists who appreciate the full complexity of phenomena combinations.
His papers are held at King's College, Londonhttps://kingscollections.org/catalogues/kclca/collection/w/10wo50-1
Image: 'The Spirit and Purpose of Geography' - pictured at Charney Manor Conference 2017 - image by Alan Parkinson shared under CC license
Update - from a piece on Marguerita Oughton - March 2020
In the early summer schools Miss Oughton played a more direct and personal part. The first, at Rhoose, Glamorgan, with Dr. Margaret Davies in 1952, was a vigorous introduction to course organization that left her with a conviction that there are few things that the Association can do for many of its members that are better worth while than the provision of practical courses in fieldwork and field teaching methods in our own countryside. This conviction was enhanced by the stimulating experience of assisting the late Professor Wooldridge at a summer school at Pulborough in the Sussex Weald in the following year. Of this I was to hear a good deal in my own home not many weeks later from Wooldridge himself. He confessed to being "much impressed by that young woman", who had obviously handled him, as she had handled any difficult members of the party, with firmness and sympathy, and had surprised him with what he called an "unfeminine capacity for administrative detail." It is not difficult to detect here a note of admiration and affection on Wooldridge5 s part that remained with him in some measure till his death.
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.
Updated August 2023
Im not the first @kclgeography academic to focus on Kent. S W Wooldridge first professor of geography wrote on the Weald, Alice Coleman wrote a guide to east Kent. Obviously important connections between London and Kent, now as ever! pic.twitter.com/ZhMlck8fOS
— Phil Hubbard (@PhilHubbard1) October 7, 2022
Catherine Duigan’s tweet reminded me of records I have of my mother, with her cousin, on a Kings College London geography field trip in the mid 1930’s. It is a mixed class, probably some geology students as well, with probably lead by Wooldridge #fieldtrip pic.twitter.com/FGnRIhfFfI
— Gina Douglas (@Gina_Douglas) September 7, 2020
A link with Michael Wise (another former GA President):
https://www.alumni.lse.ac.uk/s/1623/images/editor_documents/alumni_groups/king_s_-_lse_geog_alumni_society_newsletter_2016.pdf - memories of his time at LSE
Those who were at Juniper Hall will remember the final evening’s entertainment of Wise on the piano and Wooldridge rendering songs by Gilbert and Sullivan.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting on the blog, particularly if you are letting me know more about a particular Past President. I'll be in touch shortly as I will shortly be notified of your comment by e-mail.