Patrick Geddes on 'Geography' and the specialist

From the Herbertson Memorial Lecture of 1948, given by Robert Neal Rudmose Brown.




Source:
Brown, R. N. Rudmose. “SCOTLAND AND SOME TRENDS IN GEOGRAPHY: JOHN MURRAY, PATRICK GEDDES and ANDREW HERBERTSON.” Geography, vol. 33, no. 3, 1948, pp. 107–120. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564415. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

1965: Albert Victor Williamson

Continuing the commemoration of people whose obituaries were featured in 'Geography'. The first Professor of Geography at the University of Leeds, and a student of former President Percy Roxby.

1964: Professor David Leslie Linton

Last updated October 2023

"Mankind must be made much more aware of the world it lives in, its rigorous limitations and its limited possibilities. Above all it must be assisted and persuaded to think of the world as a whole"

D. L. Linton

David Leslie Linton was a Professor of Geographer at the University of Sheffield, and a renowned geomorphologist. His name lives on in the form of prizes in this field.


He was a close colleague of Professor Alice Garnett who, we will discover, was the beating heart of the GA for many years, following her taking up the post of Honorary Secretary in 1947 and overseeing the GA's move to Sheffield in 1950.

Alice Garnett later became GA President four years after Linton.

Linton was a geomorphologist, and also did some influential work with another former GA President: Sidney Wooldridge.

He was born, apparently, in a grocers' shop on the Old Kent Road, to Irish parents, and went on from there to Haberdasher's Aske's school. 

He was a gifted musician, and apparently wanted to do a degree in Chemistry originally. 

He was also a keen artist, and sketched the landscape, from where the geomorphological features emerged, waiting to be explained. In the 1930s, he was active with the Le Play Society, leading fieldtrips to locations including Iceland. This Society was very much tied up with the early history of the GA.

Linton went to King's College, London and was persuaded by Sidney Wooldridge (who was working as a Demonstrater at the time) to add geography to his subjects for his degree, and he was drawn into the exciting geomorphology work that was being done at the time. This university has been linked to quite a few GA Presidents, notably another geomorphologist Denys Brunsden.

He spent the war (1940-1945) with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve working in aerial photography interpretation - solid work for a geographer, and which gave him a deep knowledge of landscapes. There is definitely a book here to trace the work of the geographers who were later linked with the GA in the post-war period. It seems that he was rather good at this sort of work as his obituary explained:



After the war, he went over to check out the sites, and was just about tracked down by the University of Sheffield, who wanted to interview him for a post there where he was appointed as Professor of Geography.

Summary of his career:

King's College London, BSc (Geography), 1927, MSc, 1930; DSc 1945; Demonstrator in Geography and Geology, University of London, 1927-1929; Lecturer in Geography, University of Edinburgh, 1929-1945; served in the RAF (Photographic Intelligence), 1940-1945; Professor of Geography, University of Sheffield, 1945-1958; DSc, 1955; Professor of Geography, University of Birmingham, from 1958; William Evans Visiting Professor, University of Otago, 1959; Honorary Editor of Geography, the Quarterly Journal of the Geographical Association , 1945-1965; President of the Institute of British Geographers, 1962, and of the Geographical Association, 1964; Fellow of King's College London (FKC), 1971; received the Murchison Award, Royal Geographical Society, 1943.

What an impressive CV...

At a meeting in Sheffield (with Wooldridge and others) in 1958, he was a founder member of what became the British Geomorphological Research Group, which he chaired in 1961, and also a founder member of the Institude of British Geographers. He became President of the IBG in 1962.

Linton was honorary editor of the GA's 'Geography' journal too, between 1947 and 1965, and his name appears in numerous copies of 'Geography' in the front matter and also in the pages.

He contributed a range of articles to the journal 'Geography' through the 1940s and 1950s. One was on the rise of the million city - I wonder what he would have made of the rapid rise of megacities, particularly in China.



He also wrote a piece on Geography and the Social Revolution in 1957 in 'Geography'.
His Presidential Address. published in 1965 was on 'The Geography of Energy'


The address included some classic illustrations such as this one.


It also finished with an important message for all teachers.



I remember that he also developed a theory of the formation of Tors, and was taken to the quarry where this theory was apparently first visualised when on an undergraduate fieldtrip at Two Bridges on Dartmoor.

I've visited the quarry here. It's on the path to Wistman's Wood.



Tor formation theory is shown below, in an influential textbook of the time by David Waugh, who is mentioned elsewhere on the blog.



In 1964, he became President of the Geographical Association - probably quite a coup for the GA at the time given how prominent and busy he was.

Linton died unexpectedly in 1971, when he was nearing retirement at the end of a long career while in post at the University of Birmingham. He was still very active.


Obituary published in several journals.

A tribute to him was written by Alice Garnett and published in 1966 on the occasion of his retirement as Honorary Editor.


He received the RGS's Murchison Award.

References
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Linton_(geographer)

I amended this to add in his GA Presidency, as I have done to all entries for former Presidents.

Address: LINTON, D. L. “The Geography of Energy.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 3, 1965, pp. 197–228. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567042
Obituary:
“David Leslie Linton.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, no. 55, 1972, pp. 171–178. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621729

Garnett, Alice. “A Tribute to D. L. Linton: Honorary Editor 1947-65.” Geography, vol. 51, no. 1, 1966, pp. 65–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566046. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
LESZCZYCKI, STANISLAW, and David L. Linton. “The Development of Geography in the People's Republic of China.” Geography, vol. 48, no. 2, 1963, pp. 139–154. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565574.

LINTON, DAVID L. “Geography and the Social Revolution.” Geography, vol. 42, no. 1, 1957, pp. 13–24. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563897

LINTON, DAVID L. “Millionaire Cities To-Day and Yesterday.” Geography, vol. 43, no. 4, 1958, pp. 253–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564208
Linton, David L. “THE LANDFORMS OF LINCOLNSHIRE.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 2, 1954, pp. 67–78. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564569
https://www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences/about/history/school-history

https://kingscollections.org/catalogues/kclca/collection/l/10li50-1

https://web.archive.org/web/20080820001049/http://www.geomorphology.org.uk/pages/about/history/
https://www.geomorphology.org.uk/sites/default/files/Geophemera%20101.pdf

Linton, David L. “THE TREELESSNESS OF THE ṪUNDRA.” Geography, vol. 48, no. 1, 1963, pp. 80–81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565512.

Image of Haytor - copyright Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license
Image of Linton from the Balchin Centenary Book

Update August 2020
In 2017, my own degree tutor and former lecturer at Huddersfield Polytechnic: Professor Tim Burt was awarded the Linton Award
https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/news/allgeognews/?itemno=31007

Updated October 2023 with a quote at the start of the post.

He worked to locate V1 and V2 launch sites which is a remarkable period of history for him to have been involved with.

Robert Aitken

Following previous posts where we celebrated members with a long connection to the GA, here's a mention for Robert Aitken, who died in 1965.

Thought for the Day

Geography teachers in Britain have, over the past hundred years, played a significant part in opening the eyes and widening the horizons of those who have sat in their classes.

Source: Walford, R. (2000) Geography in British Schools 1850-2000, London: Woburn Press.

1964: XXth International Geographic Congress

The July 1964 issue of 'Geography' was a special issue to celebrate the 20th International Geographical Congress.


1964 also saw the 70th Anniversary of the GA's first AGM, which was commemorated by Alice Garnett, the Honorary Secretary at the time (and the GA President in due course)

It included a reflection on the work of the GA by Alice Garnett with a look ahead to the future move to Fulwood Road.

"we can now have courage to blaze new trails that will be worthy of the founder members of seventy years ago; with, ere very long, some of the guiding reins transferred once more into the trust of younger hands"

Thanks to Brendan Conway for sharing the front cover of a book that was published for this event.

Two GA Presidents were involved here.
Geoffrey Hutchings contribution with SW Wooldridge to one of my collector items 'Guide To London Excursions 1964' produced for the 20th International Geographical Congress in 1964.

I ordered a copy of this from ABE Books.

More on that to come in a future blog post.

In the meantime, Brendan Conway posted over on his Think Geographically blog a repost of an original post from 2014, where he had looked back at this event.

I will post more about this event in another blog post using some of Brendan's research.

I've previously posted about the special stamps which were released for this event, and which I've also got copies of - partly as a result of work by L Dudley STAMP to have these produced.

I did further research to try to find further details and papers.

The Twentieth International Geographical Congress was held in London between 20th and 28th July, being formally opened by H.M. the Queen on 21st July, 1964. It was attended by some 2500 delegates from 68 countries

1964: Crone's article on Geography in the 20th Century

In 1964, the librarian of the RGS, G R Crone wrote a chronology of geography in the 20th Century with some excellent details on the development of the subject, and prominent mentions for quite a few former GA Presidents.



There are references to many GA Presidents and their contributions, including Herbertson and Mill, Steers, Stamp and Roxby.
Also some familiar diagrams on the development of the region, and some images of people from the time.
Well worth a read.

References

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.

1964: A Scilly excursion

1964: Nearly disastrous expedition from the Falmouth Spring Conference to the Scilly Isles, in the SS Scillonian - one of the roughest passages for many years. 

This passage in Peter Fox's chronology intrigued me.
At the time there were some summer and spring field excursions, which were very popular as they predated (just) the main travel agents / package holiday business.

The excursion formed part of the 1964 Spring Conference in April, which took place in Cornwall.


You woll see reference to many former Presidents in the speakers list, including David Leslie Linton. who will be coming up next in 1964, talking about tors and granite, which must have been a great pleasure for those involved.

It seems that there was a voyage on a ship to the Scilly Isles which encountered particularly rough weather.


Source: “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 3, 1964, pp. 346–348. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566391. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020.

1963: Professor Kenneth Charles Edwards, CBE

Updated October 2023

Professor Kenneth Charles Edwards was an academic geographer, with a particular interest in fieldwork and  biogeography, who was closely associated with the University of Nottingham.

He was born in Hampshire in 1904, and went to Itchen College and the University of Southampton.

He started out at as an Assistant Lecturer in Geography, as far back as 1926 at the University of Nottingham, where he stayed until his retirement in 1970.

He was a Fellow of the RGS too. He was also President of the IBG in 1960 - another GA President to have been closely linked with that organisation.

He was appointed to the first Chair of Geography in the University of Nottingham in 1949 and held the post until his retirement in 1970.

His Presidential address was titled: "The importance of Biogeography" and was delivered at the London School of Economics.
He was the President in the year of my birth.
Image from Balchin Centenary volume.

From Robert Steel's obituary:


In his Presidential Address, he described the importance of this branch of the subject as connecting lots of others.


It was interesting to see the use of the Wallace line, developed by Alfred Russell Wallace was still used at the time, and featured in his talk.

A collection of essays in his honour was published in 1970.

He was the editor of 'Geography' for a period.

Edwards also contributed to the classic Collins illustrated series of regional geographies with a book on an area I know very well: 'The Peak District' - a book I am sure I have read before in that edition.

He also contributed pieces to the Royal Meteorological Society's journal.

He was the editor of "British Landscapes through Maps".

He worked in local planning as well, getting involved in planning decisions in the East Midlands. He helped set up the 'East Midland Geographer' journal, and was also active in the Le Play Society, which has been featured on the blog several times before.

He died in Beeston, Notts in 1982, apparently "peacefully in his sleep", which is a good a way as any to go.

An obituary was published in Geography in the same year, and Robert Steel also wrote about his life and work.



A memorial lecture was announced later that year too, as reported in 'Geography', as part of the Nottingham GA Branch. He gave more than 50 years of service to the GA Branch. I wonder whether this annual lecture is still part of the Nottingham GA Branch programme.


References

Professor Edwards' address can be read here:
EDWARDS, K. C. “The Importance of Biogeography.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 2, 1964, pp. 85–97. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565787

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49705623708

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/about/history.aspx

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geographical-essays-honour-K-Edwards/dp/0900572159

Edwards, K. C. “THE NEW TOWNS OF BRITAIN.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 3, 1964, pp. 279–285. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566379
Papers: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/bbf12dfb-1e04-3f1e-a5ee-9592722edfc7

Obituary, written by another GA President Stanley Beaver:

Beaver, S. H. “Obituary: Professor K. C. EDWARDS CBE, MA, PhD FRGS (1904-1982).” Geography, vol. 67, no. 3, 1982, pp. 267–267. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570571

Steel, Robert W. “Kenneth Charles Edwards, 1904-1982.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 8, no. 1, 1983, pp. 115–119. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/622282. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020.
From the JISC archives, some details:

Kenneth Charles Edwards was born in Hampshire in 1904 and educated at Itchen Grammar School and University College Southampton. He joined University College Nottingham in 1926 to teach as an assistant lecturer in the department of geography and geology. When the department divided, Edwards became lecturer in charge of geography. He was promoted to a readership in 1939 and in 1948 was elected to the newly-independent University of Nottingham's first Chair of Geography. Beyond his subject responsibilities at the university, Edwards was also chairman of the University Club and the first Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences.

Professor Edwards was keenly committed to the promotion of serious field studies as an important element of undergraduate study. He was for many years the chairman of the Le Play Society's Students' Group, before becoming president of its successor, the Geographical Field Group, after the war. He remained president until his death. He also held the presidency of the Nottingham branch of the Geographical Association. From 1937 to 1958, he was convenor of the Standing Conference of Heads of Geography Departments in British Universities.

His wide geographical knowledge of the East Midlands led to his being released on secondment between 1944 and 1946 as the Regional Research Officer for the newly-established Ministry of Town and Country Planning. In 1956, he launched The East Midlands Geographer and in 1966 he edited Nottingham and its region for the British Association's Nottingham annual meeting of that year. In 1967, Professor Edwards was nominated to the East Midlands Regional Economic Planning Council, and his services to planning and the region were recognised by a CBE in 1970.

As a result of pre-war field studies and doctoral research, Edwards became an authority on the geography of Luxembourg. This experience was used in wartime intelligence. He subsequently initiated and edited the National Atlas of Luxembourg, published in 1971. He was also familiar with Poland through field study and led the first official post-war delegation of university geographers there in 1959. Professor Edwards died in Beeston, Nottinghamshire on 7 May 1982.

Economic Planning Councils were established by the UK Government in 1964. They were responsible to the Department of Economic Affairs and replaced the regional boards operated by the Ministry of Production and then the Board of Trade. The East Midlands regional council was based in Nottingham and was active in economic planning and development in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. The council investigated a broad range of issues including new towns, sewage, rivers, and housing.
He was pictured in  Balchin's Centenary volume as shown at the top of the entry.

Articles in 'Geography'
Edwards, K. C. “CHANGING GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERNS IN LINCOLNSHIRE.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 2, 1954, pp. 78–90. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564570.

British Geography 1918-1945, Editted by Robert.W Steel - published in 1987.
Chapter 12 was by J A Patmore, where he gave a personal perspective on the period.
He described Kenneth Edwards as "a patient and courteous external examiner of a postgraduate thesis, always anxious to retain the link with the student".

Updated August 2021

He seems to have been an expert on the country of Luxembourg.

https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/bbf12dfb-1e04-3f1e-a5ee-9592722edfc7 

Updated July 2022

In 1970, a collection of essays in his honour was published by the University of Nottingham.

The foreword to this book turns out to have the best biography of him that I have found.

The book also describes a little about his time as President of the GA, where he helped "supervise the move to a new headquarters".

If anyone has further information about Professor Edwards please get in touch so I can add more detail to this post.

Updated August 2022

Professor Edwards delivered the 15th Herbertson Memorial Lecture in May 1973.

Updated October 2023

I am now researching the Geographical Research Group... that Edwards was closely connected with.

Why studying Geography is important

If the conference was going ahead as planned, one of my contributions was to do a session for the Young Geographers' strand.
This didn't form part of the final eConference.

As I knew the conference was cancelled, I didn't spend the day or so needed to finish it off, but have put in some notes of what I would have said. If I am called on to do this session next year it will all have changed anyway, so I thought I'd share it as part of my contributions to the eConference.

I've shared it here for you to view / fillet as required to help with transition perhaps for Y11 / Y13 students over the coming weeks.

GA eConference 2020

Thursday's GA Conference 2020 Public Lecture and Awards were streamed on YouTube for the first time ever replacing the face to face event.
Paul Rose spoke about the power of his own teacher in changing his life.
I also took part in a panel on 'Geography at Home' which can be viewed here.

Gill Miller's Presidential lecture also kicked off proceedings yesterday. If you missed them head over to the GA's YouTube channel to watch at your leisure. 
Gill's lecture has been viewed over 1700 times at the time of posting.

1964: GA Branches

Cartography by J E Hall, Dept of Geography University of Sheffield 
Original copyright: Geographical Association, published in 'Geography' journal in 1964

GA Branches still had gaps in coverage - something which we are still tackling and conscious of today.

As we gather electronically for the GA's eConference. It's worth noting the importance of GA Branch activity which can hopefully continue in some way, perhaps using Zoom or similar to gather people together.

GA Branches 1964 by Alan Parkinson on Scribd

The SPC and eConference 2020

The SPC was created in 1927.

I served on the GA Secondary Phase Committee for many years, joining in 2004 when Gary Dawson and Rob Lodge chaired, later to be Alan Kinder and Sarah Watts, followed by other geography luminaries.
I stepped down for a few years when working for the GA 2008-11, then rejoined. I stepped down at the end of 2019 again when I became the GA's Junior Vice President, spending a few years as Secretary.

The GA SPC has a Facebook page, which will be sharing news and quotes from the GA's eConference, which is taking place from lunchtime today through to Saturday teatime.



Stephen Schwab and Paul Hunt were co-chairs for some years and they are going to be sharing some of the workshops that had been prepared for the GA Conference, but weren't added to the final eConference schedule for lack of space.
I'll share some links over on LivingGeography once they are available.

1963-7: Haggett and Chorley and Madingley

In the sixties, there was a revival of quantitative geography, and the use of statistical models to help explain some geographical patterns and processes.

Peter Haggett was one of the lead lecturers in this movement, but people who were associated with the GA were also there too.

Madingley Conferences took place at this time, convened and organised by Haggett and Richard Chorley. They ran between 1963-7 and spawned several influential textbooks.



At the Geography Teacher Educators's conference in 2010, I had the privilege of speaking to the late Rex Walford (of which many more posts to come) after he did a talk on his memories of attending these conferences.
He had brought some of his memorabilia to the event and it was fascinating to see those original documents from those conferences that he had brought along.

Image from University of Cambridge Alumnus magazine (see source below)

Walford is quoted in Ivor Goodson's book talking about this time:

The Madingley Lectures proved a watershed in the emergence of the subject. Two years before, E.E. Gilbert - in an article on 'The Idea of the Region' - had stated that he regarded new geography in the universities as an 'esoteric cult'. After Madingley, this was no longer the case, as a college lecturer who was secretary of his local Geographical Association recalled: 'After Madingley my ideas were turned upside down... That's where the turn around in thinking in geography really started'. But as Walford later noted, Madingley was 'heady to some, undrinkable brew to others'. Following the second Madingley Conference in 1968, Chorley and Haggett sought to consolidate the changes they were advocating by a new book entitled Models in Geography. By this time opinions were becoming progressively polarized about the 'new geography'. Slaymaker wrote in support of the book:

In retrospect, a turning point in the development of geographical methodology in Britain. After the exploratory and mildly iconoclastic contents of the first Madingley lectures, recorded in Frontiers in Geographical Teaching, a more substantial statement of the methodological basis and aims of the so-called 'new geography' was required... with the publication of this book [it is demonstrated that] the traditional classificatory paradigm is inadequate and that in the context of the 'new geography' an irreversible step has been taken to push us back into the mainstream of scientific activity by process of model building. 

Neville Grenyer wrote about this time for the GA in 1972.

The Madingley Seminars were held between 1964 and 1967, following first lectures in 1963. 'Frontiers in Geographical Teaching' captured the atmosphere of the seminars. 'Trends in Geography' by Cooke and Johnson also came out of these events.

It also inspired my PGCE tutor Vincent Tidswell, who will appear later in the blog in his work.

Here's Chorley in an early interview.



More to come on this in future posts.

References
Wikipedia page for Peter Haggett:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Haggett

Madingley Conferences:
https://www.ivorgoodson.com/becoming-a-school-subject?p=12 - and other pages near this

Grenyer, N: "An introduction to Recent developments in Geography teaching: an annotated
bibliography" (Geography, Vol 57, No. 4, November 1972)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40567919

https://www.geography.org.uk/Journal-Issue/ea4a0ee3-5175-48c2-a8ae-1789df0ffec7 - Peter Haggett

References: Rex Walford's book on School Geography.

Image: Madingley Hall - shared under CC license by Alan Parkinson (2010)

1962: Professor Emrys George Bowen - 'EGB'

Last updated July 2022

1962 saw another academic Geographer take over as President.
Professor Bowen worked at Aberystwyth University as a human geographer, where the GA was based for many years. 
He was known to all as 'EGB'.
He was born in 1900 in Carmarthen, Wales.

He studied at the University of Aberystwyth under another previous President: H. J. Fleure, graduating in 1923.
He also later wrote an obituary for Fleure on behalf of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

The following year he entered the Education department and obtained a teacher's diploma. Subsequently, and after a year's research at Aberystwyth, he became the first Cecil Prosser Fellow at the Welsh National School of Medicine at Cardiff.

During 1928-9 he was an assistant editor with the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (writing some geography content) before being appointed an assistant lecturer in the department of Geography and Anthropology at Aberystwyth in 1929. There he stayed for the rest of his academic career as lecturer, senior lecturer and ultimately Gregynog Professor from 1946.
During the Second World War he remained at Aberystwyth and lectured in meteorology to the Initial Training Wing (ITW) of the RAF which was located there - like many Presidents of this time, he had wartime experience.

He had pieces published in GA journals as early as 1932, over 30 years before he eventually became the President - this was a time when longevity and continuity of GA membership was perhaps greater than today, with a few notable exceptions who I always look forward to seeing at the GA conference.

Bowen's Presidential Address was on the theme of 'The Geography of Nations', connecting with his interests in anthropology, and was given in 1963 at the London School of Economics.


EGB was President of The Institute of British Geographers in 1958, President of section E of the British Association in 1962, and President of the Cambrian Archaeological Society in 1967.

He was awarded the Murchison grant of the Royal Geographical Society in 1958.

This makes him another one of many GA Presidents to have gone on to receive RGS Medals.

In 1949 Bowen was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He was awarded an honorary Ll.D. by the University of Wales and an honorary Doctorate by the Open University. He was also an honorary member of the Gorsedd of Bards.

The Annual E. G. Bowen Lecture was established by Aberystwyth University in 2014 in memory of Professor E. G. Bowen, who had a particular interest in the social and physical geographies of Wales.

I liked this final honour, because it links in with my own ideas of storytelling as being one of the great gifts of any teacher, and the Bardic tradition is strong in this element of teaching and listening.

The Biography of Wales piece also has this comment:

"it was in the tradition of the cyfarddwyddiaid, of the story-tellers of early Wales and of the Welsh preachers of later times rather than of the academic disquisition, just as his research was based on intuition rather than on the systematic analysis of data bases."

Former GA President Steve Rawlinson (who will have his own entry in due course) has some very happy memories of Professor Bowen. They are included here:

EG Bowen – memories from Steve Rawlinson.

My first meeting with EG was during Freshers week. It was a long tradition that he would give a
lecture to all the new students at the university in the Kings Hall – a building now sadly demolished. I
was warned by roommate who knew about this event not to dress up for the occasion. We freshers
were herded into the stalls while the second and third years occupied the upper tiers. EG appeared
on the stage to riotous applause and then promptly disappeared behind the lectern – he was a
diminutive figure, although as I was to later discover one with a huge personality. From then on we
only saw the top of his head as he gave what I subsequently heard was a superb lecture delivered in
an inimitable style. His words were rather lost to us as we fended off an almost continuous hail of
missiles of water and flour and the occasional egg from above. This barrage only stopped when the
pictures of the fire in 1885 that engulfed the original college appeared to huge applause and cheers
from those above. The end of his lecture was marked by further enthusiastic applause from the
whole audience though none had heard very much of it.

Always smiling EG was a legend at the uni – long retired by the time I got there he was still an almost
continuous presence during my undergrad years and I was highly privileged to get to know him when
I became expeditions officer for the Geog Soc. I enjoyed many trips to various locations with him
sitting next to me giving an almost continuous commentary about the places we passed through. It
was a privilege to hear him speak in more formal settings where I came to appreciate his
consummate skill as a presenter and teacher. He always had three points/themes/threads to his
arguments and his timing was that of the professional actor. It was a delight to be in his company.
It seemed he never turned down a speaking engagement and put as much energy into talking to a
village WI meeting as he did that of more academic gatherings. No one got short changed at an EG
lecture. His enthusiasm and that twinkle in his eyes always drew his audience in. His travelling
around Wales giving lectures was truly in the spirit of the founders of the University who undertook
such trips to convince people of the importance of having a university on their doorstep.
Personally he gave me an immeasurable amount of encouragement during my MSc year and was
always interested to hear how the research was going and offer advice and thought. I think it was EG
that suggested I employ a Welsh speaker to carry out my interviews with farmers – a cunning move
as it increased the response rate considerably. It was a delight to have him on the stage at my
graduation for that degree and meet my parents afterwards. I always remember him removing his
hat when introduced to my mother – a real gentleman. I was so pleased to recently discover the
reference he wrote for me.

EG tales are part of the myths and legends of Aber – everyone has their favourites. I have two
particular stories that seem to sum up EG. 
When his yellow mini was sold – the car in which he travelled all over Wales – it was advertised as never having been out of second gear. Having survived two journeys with him I can vouch that the garage had got that right.
Others have written that being an administrator was not his forte – his filing system was really to
have tables on which piles of papers accumulated. How he found anything always was a mystery. He
had offices in the old college originally which had a rather ancient heating system consisting of gas
fires in each room. EG was very wary of these and would turn the gas on and then retreat to the far
side of the room and proceed to throw lighted matches at the fire. The eventual loud explosion as
the gas caught was the signal that ‘the prof is in’.

EG really was a one off – a story teller, a supreme teacher and communicator whose passion for and curiosity for all things geographical was irresistible. 
His twinkling eyes, his every present smile and his ability to talk to anyone made him the best of company. He features hugely in my many happy memories of Aber and my deep love of the ‘college by the sea’.

Updated January 2021

Steve included a picture of EGB in his Presidential lecture in 2016.

https://slideplayer.com/slide/10339855/ 

Bowen also wrote many reviews of other GA Presidents' work, including H J Fleure, as mentioned in his own blog post from 1948.

He was welcomed to the Presidency in a piece in 'Geography', where he was described as being "already well known to numerous members through his own inspired teaching and scholarship".


EGB died in 1983.

An obituary, written by Harold Carter, was published in the Transactions of the IBG



He was also remembered by another former GA President Sheila Jones as "a very kind member of the hierarchy". Further memories of EGB may follow, and I am happy to add them here, along with other images and memories.

References

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._G._Bowen - source of the image above

Added the GA Presidency role to this entry.

https://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/herbert-john-fleure

BOWEN, E. G. “The Geography of Nations: Address to the Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 48, no. 1, 1963, pp. 1–17. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565501.

Bowen, E. G. “EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN THE BRITISH ISLES: A STUDY IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.” Geography, vol. 17, no. 4, 1932, pp. 267–276. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40558508.
Biography: https://biography.wales/article/s8-BOWE-GEO-1900

British Geography 1918-1945, Edited by Robert.W Steel - published in 1987.
Chapter 12 was by J A Patmore, where he gave a personal perspective on the period.

Obituary: Carter, Harold. “Emrys G. Bowen, 1900-1983.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 9, no. 3, 1984, pp. 374–380. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/622242. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020.

Emrys Bowen is described as "with nonconformist fervour, always happy to show that every worthwhile innovation had its roots in Aberystwyth"

“Obituary: E. G. Bowen, 1900-1983.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 150, no. 2, 1984, pp. 297–297. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/635050. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020.

Updated August 2021

A portrait of EGB:

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/emrys-george-bowen-19001983-121103 

One of his books

Updated July 2022

You can also find a selection of EGB's books on the Internet Archive.

These are mostly on themes related to Wales.

One of them is a Centenary set of essays, which also features H J Fleure

If you have further information relating to EGB, please get in touch.

Classroom Geographer magazine

About three years ago, I got in touch with Neil Sealey.
He edited a journal which was launched in the 1970s. It predated the GA's 'Teaching Geography' journal, and was edited and printed and published from Neil's own home in Luton.

Neil retired to the Caribbean, but kindly told me a great deal about the journal, and I started to write an article on the journal for the GA's journals.

This journal was the first to really offer a chance for teachers to read what other teachers were doing in their classrooms, as there were few opportunities to network in the 1970s and 1980s.

This became the purpose of 'Teaching Geography' when it appeared (more on that in a future blog post)

There was much talk of the 'New' Geography, and of traditional topics and approaches being replaced by the quantitative ideas of Central Place Theory, statistical models and early simulation games. It was published through the 1970s and 1980s, starting out at 20p per issue (including postage), with around 5 issues a year. It's been a good few hours now spent reading through the journals in date order, and finding interesting perspectives on Geography (so far from quite a male dominated perspective, and with more contributions from Geography masters, or university lecturers than classroom teachers...)

Neil very kindly sent me a box of issues, an almost complete set. The full set can also be accessed at the British Library (I can't wait for it to reopen so that I can go back to using my Reader's Card)

I added some copies to the exhibition which I helped curate for the GA's 125th Anniversary Conference in Sheffield.

Some early contributions from former Presidents are going to be showcased on this blog - some early pieces from David Lambert and Steve Rawlinson amongs others.
Image shows the box of Classroom Geographer journals kindly donated to me (and onwards to GA / RGS) by Neil Sealey.

References
https://www.academia.edu/25591650/Geography_education_grey_literature_and_the_geographical_canon

Get in touch if you remember the journal. There are some real gems waiting to be shared.

Land Use UK

An example square from the Land Use Survey of, I think the 1960s, although the scale of the map here suggests it may be from the sample used in 1996.

This was carried out in Mike Morrish's Presidential Year in 1995-6.

He told me:

The joint focus of my year was the national Land Use UK survey carried out by schools, in conjunction with the GA's first Geography Action Week. Preparations for these had been going on for the preceding two years. My main memories are of the many meetings that the preparations involved, and the crucial role of Rex Walford in bringing these joint projects to fruition. Of course, the Annual Conference at Southampton University in 1996 was an exciting end to the year, especially delivering my Presidential Lecture (on China).