Last updated September 2023
My first role when writing this entry was to work out which of several Lord Nathans was the correct one, as there have been several, but this was fairly quickly established.
He was educated at St. Pauls School in London - as were several GA Presidents over the years.
Lord Nathan had a distinguished service in the First World War, serving in the London Regiment in Gallipoli, Egypt and France where he survived a severe head wound: one of several GA Presidents to have seen distinguished active service, including Dudley Stamp.
After the war he went into politics.
During the late 1950s, Lord Nathan was working on redrafting the constitution of the Association, and worked on some Statutes and Standing Orders which were eventually adopted by the GA. This sort of work is often going on in the background of the Association, without much fanfare, but there are many activitists and volunteers completing this work, and their work is vital. There are always people who are needed to assist with various roles within the Association.
His Presidential Address was on the theme of 'World Aviation and Geography'.
In it, he referenced the IGY and the development of exploration in Antarctica.
I'm sure he would have appreciated the development of drones and their use.
He also spoke at length about the importance of the Arctic and the movement of aircraft along the Polar circle routes - something which is now routine for trans-Atlantic flights and also for Qantas flights avoiding disturbances in the usual Rossby wave circulation.
He was still working tirelessly in his 70s in a number of roles, many of them voluntary.
He died in 1974 in Westminster Hospital, of which he had previously been the Chairman.
A busy and productive life, and with a lot of effort in the background of the Association.
References
Obituary: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1794751?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Kirwan, L. P. “Obituary: The Rt. Hon. Lord Nathan, P. C., T. D., D. L., F. S. A.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 129, no. 4, 1963, pp. 582–584. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1794751. - source of the image - used under fair use
NATHAN, LORD. “World Aviation and Geography: Address to The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 42, no. 1, 1957, pp. 1–12. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563896.
If anyone knows more of Lord Nathan's contributions to the GA, please get in touch - I haven't been able to find a huge amount about him compared to some of his contemporaries.
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 piece - worth reading - on the value of geography to the world of business and economics. A good comment from L Dudley Stamp
Last updated December 2021
Coincidentally came across an obituary for Lord Nathan, written by L Dudley Stamp.
Stamp, L. Dudley. “HARRY LOUIS NATHAN: FIRST LORD NATHAN OF CHURT.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 1, Geographical Association, 1964, pp. 57–58, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40565764.
This gave me his actual names for the first time.
Of his time as President, the obituary also mentions:
He was a solicitor, and also entered the Lords as a Liberal.
He seems to have given a lot of good advice.
He was a Government Minister of Civil Aviation 1946-1948.
Like several other GA Presidents he also became President of the Royal Geographical Society, and also hosted dinners of the Geographical Club (one of which I was recently invited to)
It appears he died following complications from an emergency appendectomy - a couple of months before I was born.
Updated September 2023
Churt is a village in Surrey.
A report on an event at the Royal Society of Arts in 1961.
He mentions his Presidency of the GA at the start of the address - a few other quotes:
"I do not pretend to define 'Geography'. Molière 's Bourgeois gentilhomme was astonished to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life. In some respects, geography is rather like that. But to propound an acceptable definition is a formid able task even for those who are, unlike myself, professional geographers. My association with geography by virtue of office has, however, taught me something of the very great changes that have taken place in the conception of geography since my own schooldays. Life was simpler then ; in the words of E. C. Bentley : geography was about maps, biography about chaps. For years, for centuries, indeed since classical times, geography was almost exclusively descriptive. It consisted of the collection of facts about countries and peoples."
"By his training the geographer has acquired the habit of looking at problems in their all-round relations. The trained geographer is accustomed to analyse a landscape from the point of view of many branches of knowledge, and to approach problems from many different directions. Just as a geographer should be able to synthesize all the different elements of a landscape, so he is trained to balance all the factors in a problem and see it whole. It is this synoptic view of the geographer which is the heart of the matter. It is fundamental and vital to the effective planning of all commercial and industrial development."
Following the talk, there was an interesting question from someone who was there:
Another point was made by Dudley Stamp.
"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."
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.
Book plate here
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