1957: Professor Patrick Walter Bryan

Updated June 2021

Professor Pat Walter Bryan was an academic geographer, who worked at the University of Leicester.

He was known to everyone as 'Pat'.

He was educated at the London School of Economics, which has a very strong connection with the GA as we have seen.

His research interests included the landscapes of Leicestershire, which makes sense with his work at the Geography department at the University of Leicester

The text below is taken from the University's description of the department:

Geography was one of the three founding disciplines offered by the new University College of Leicester in 1921 with Gladys Sarson, a local grammar school teacher responsible for the teaching on a part-time basis.

The following year the Department was established with the appointment of P.W. Bryan (an assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics) as a full time Lecturer and Head of Department, and for the next 30 years Geography at Leicester was synonymous with Pat Bryan.

These early years were ones of intense struggle and between 1926 and 1939 15 students graduated in Geography. Accommodation was limited to a lecture room and a practical room which contained some surveying equipment and a few maps.
By the 1950s however, the number of graduates had grown to around 20 annually and there were four new lecturers. Roy Millward sadly passed away in 2016 but he and former technician Terry Garfield were guests of honour at the 90th birthday celebrations. 

Besides being Head of Department at the University, he was Vice-Principal for over twenty years and Chairman of numerous College Boards. 
Even so, he found time to make important scholarly contributions. 

In 1924 he was one of the first students to be awarded by London University the – for Britain – new degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a thesis published later the same year as part of a book, North America, written with L L Rodwell Jones, which remained in print until 1968. 

This was followed in 1933 by Man’s Adaptation of Nature: Studies in Cultural Landscape.

He became GA President three years after retiring from a long and successful academic career at the University of Leicester.

I came across this diagram from the book in a recent collection of pieces which were inspired by the Geographies of the French author Georges Perec. My GA Presidential address will be inspired by some of Perec's ideas as well.



His Presidential Address was on the theme of 'Geography and Landscape'. 

It is well worth reading. Some quotes will appear separately.




He was also particularly interested in photography and the use of visuals in teaching, which places him in the vanguard of the new generation of geographers who 10 years later would enter the quantitative revolution with the courses at Madingley which will be featured in this blog in due course.

Pat apparently regularly contributed a film to GA Conferences in the 1950s.
I wonder if any of those still exist in an archive somewhere - that would be rather good to find out. I contacted the Geography department at the University to see what they could offer and they were very helpful.

Having contacted the University of Leicester, they very kindly sent me a large amount of additional information, including details of his retirement here, plus details of his career.
There were some newsletters and a selection of images. I am grateful for their help.


Here he is doing some fieldwork.



Upon Professor Bryan's retirement in 1954 his successor, Professor Norman Pye, was to transform this small Department over the next 25 years into one which was a leader in teaching and research.
More on Norman Pye to come later as well, as he was heavily involved with the GA, although he never became President.



Pat Bryan died in 1968 at the age of 83, another GA President who had lived a long life.

I also found a reference to some late activity and involvement in Environmental Studies within the Department, which showed that Pat continued to be active well into his 80s, shades of James Fairgrieve there.

References

Image source:
http://www.leicesterlitandphil.org.uk/1937-p-w-bryan-bsc-phd-1937-38/

https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2013/june/university-of-leicester-department-of-geography-invites-public-to-celebrate-its-90th-anniversary

Obituary: https://search.proquest.com/openview/2c8b72d47f0d81df3d0fd4720ef8f68e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1818801

Presidential Address: BRYAN, P. W. “Geography and Landscape: Address to the Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 43, no. 1, 1958, pp. 1–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564113

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1038/175198a0.pdf - link to 1954 conference piece

Images are mostly courtesy of the documents sent by the School of Geography at Leicester University, with particular thanks to Kerry Allen for responding to my e-mail most kindly.



As always, if anyone has further information or memories, please get in touch. This will hopefully become more common as we get closer to the present day.

Updated June 2020
An obituary was published in January 1969 in 'Geography'.

Source: Millward, R. “PATRICK WALTER BRYAN.” Geography, vol. 54, no. 1, 1969, pp. 93–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566740. Accessed 5 June 2020

https://www.leicesterlitandphil.org.uk/1937-p-w-bryan-bsc-phd-1937-38/ - Lit and Phil Society biography

Updated June 2021

#dcweekly Did You Know? The first PhD was awarded at the University of Leicester in 1924 and was titled to (now) Dr Patrick Walter Bryan in the Geography Department! #TheDoctoralCollege #CitizensOfChange #CuriosityLedResearch #OursToChange #PhD #PGR #ECR #PostDoc #Researcher pic.twitter.com/ErjjK0QQ0f

— The Doctoral College (@doctoralcollege) November 16, 2020