John Cole was particularly associated with the University of Nottingham where he studied himself and then returned for a long career.
Cole was born in Sydney, Australia. He graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1950. He later returned there to join the staff of the Geography Department, rising to become Professor of Urban and Regional Geography. He was Emeritus Professor of Geography at the university. From 1957 he wrote or co-authored over 25 books on geography, including Geography of World Affairs, first published in 1959. His work ran from school texts to academic papers, and he was an early adopter of computers in geographical studies.
It seems he was an early innovator with ICT in Geography during the quantitative revolution and also wrote on poverty.
I remember a couple of his books in particular:
- Quantitative Geography: Techniques and Theories in Geography (with Cuchlaine. A. M. King - who also sadly passed away relatively recently and had an obituary in the recent issue of 'Geographical Journal') (1968)
- New Ways in Geography: A Guide for Teachers (with N. J. Beynon) (1969)
An obituary in the Times described him as a "popular, gentle geographer", which is a lovely thing to be remembered as.
Update
He was also mentioned in the Presidential Lecture of E.C. Marchant in 1967 who talked about him working to produce resources for teachers following the arrival of ICT.
An article in 'Geography' in 1969.
Sources:
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cole_(geographer)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-john-cole-91-popular-gentle-geographer-and-writer-on-world-poverty-nncdf8sp9 - paywall
COLE, J. P. “Mathematics and Geography.” Geography, vol. 54, no. 2, 1969, pp. 152–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566781. Accessed 12 June 2020.
I was taught by Prof Cole at the University of Nottingham in the 80s. He taught 'The Developing World' in first year. As today, Thursday night was the big student night out of the week, with most of Geography going to Nottingham's Rock City each week. No matter what time we rolled in home we were in A34 for Prof Cole every one of us, at 9am on Friday morning. This wasn't be cause we would be in trouble if we missed it, Prof Cole never took a roll. It was because we all loved his stories, and learnt so much from them. He was my tutor in second year, and it was a privilege to sit in his office and learn from him. The Times was right he was always gentle and extremely popular.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Susan. Rock City was a good venue for many concerts over the years... :)
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