Return to Oxford

In 2018, the GA celebrated its 125th Anniversary with a meal at Christchurch College, Oxford, where the GA began.
Here is the menu from the special meal held to mark the anniversary of the Association, which was held that year, and has been referred to previously. There will be plenty more to come on this as we get closer to the present day.



Image copyright: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

L J Jay

L J Jay's initials can be seen in numerous documents, reviews, minutes and reports in 'Geography' spanning several decades.
He was the GA's Librarian in the 1950s and 60s and was also a lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Sheffield.

He also contributed to the special Centenary issue on A J Herbertson

He was another of those unsung heroes of the Association who did so much over many years.

Trying to find an image of him but failed...


References
Pieces include:
JAY, L. J. “Experimental Work in School Geography.” Geography, vol. 45, no. 3, 1960, pp. 205–213. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565160
JAY, L. J. “The Herbertson Memorial Lectures.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 4, 1965, pp. 371–372. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565963. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
If anyone has further information on L. J. Jay it would be gratefully received.

More information is going to be coming in an updated post in a day or so, with thanks to Frances Soar.

1973: Professor Robert Walter Steel, CBE

Last updated August 2023

Professor Robert W Steel was an academic geographer. He was connected with the University of Liverpool for much of his career and also had a connection with Swansea University.

He was involved in writing a history of the Institute of British Geographers and a number of books on the geography of Africa, and the Tropics.

He also edited the book: British Geography, 1918-1945, published by Cambridge University Press, which described the early part of the 20th Century, and which I have referred to online during the writing of this blog.

One chapter was written by J A Patmore, another former GA President.

I was not initially able to find very much about Professor Steel, as with other Presidents from this period, as it predates most online documents but is also after the period when other documents exist.
Robert was born in East Anglia, and was a fan of Norwich City FC, which provides a small personal connection.

I did find a description from the Liverpool University Archives.

Professor Robert Walter Steel CBE (1915-1997) began his academic career at Oxford University in 1938. As University Lecturer in Commonwealth Geography (1947-56), Lecturer in Geography, St Peter's Hall (1951-56) and Official Fellow and Tutor in Geography at Jesus College (1954-56), to which he had previously been affiliated as both an undergraduate and postgraduate, His wife Eileen was a fellow Oxford geography graduate.

Steel's main area of academic interest concentrated upon the political geography of Tropical Africa. He carried out early fieldwork in Sierra Leone.

Upon the death of Professor Wilfred Smith in 1956, he was offered and accepted the position of John Rankin Professor of Geography at the University of Liverpool.
Fully integrating himself into university life, Steel quickly became an important figure and was instrumental in the establishment of the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies. 

Indeed, until his departure from the University of Liverpool in 1974 to take up the position of Principal Designate at University College Swansea, he assumed much administrative responsibility and in addition to his role as Head of the Geography Department, he acted as Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1965-1968) and Pro-Vice Chancellor (1971-1973). Positions of great responsibility.

He had considered staying at Liverpool to end his career but was persuaded to move to Swansea.

In these days of decolonising the curriculum it's interesting that he taught Colonial Geography, which then became Commonwealth Geography.

Keenly involved with many geographic associations, Steel played a central role within the Institute of British Geographers IBG; acting as Member of the Council (1947-60), Acting Secretary (1948), Assistant Secretary (1949-50), Honorary Editor of Publications (1950-60), Vice-President (1966-67), President (1968) and Honorary Member (1974). Furthermore, he occupied the position of President in several other societies, including Section 'E' of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1966), (1970-71) and the Inter-Universities Council for Higher Education Overseas (1971-81). He also wrote a Jubilee history of the IBG in 1984.

He was made an Honorary Member of the GA, its highest honour, in 1982.

Steel's commitment to all geographic concerns is similarly demonstrated by his work for various government bodies. As well as spending the inter-war years working with the Naval Intelligence Division in an attempt to produce a handbook for soldiers posted to the Tropics, he was also employed by the War Office, Colonial Office, Social Science Research Council and Merseyside Social and Economic Survey. This makes him another of several GA Presidents who saw military service in this area, using their skills in intelligence.

Professor Steel sadly died in 1997, after being involved with the GA for over fifty years. A tremendous length of service to the Association. There are a few members with similar length of service around - they received badges during 2020.

His obituary was written by another former GA President and colleague: Richard Lawton.

References
Professor Steel's papers are held at the University of Liverpool. Within those would be plenty of further information to complete this blog post:
http://sca-arch.liv.ac.uk/ead/search?operation=full&recid=gb141unistaffs-t-d91

Steel, R. W. “Some Geographical Problems of Land Use in British West Africa.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 14, 1948, pp. 27–42. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621259

Image: thanks to former GA President, Professor Andrew Goudie for sourcing this image. 

If anyone has further information on Robert, and his time as GA President it would as always be appreciated.

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.

In 1972, he gave a paper at the 22nd International Geographic Congress in Canada, which referenced several previous Presidents.
Steel, Robert W., and J. Wreford Watson. “Geography in the United Kingdom 1968-72: Report to the 22nd International Geographical Congress at Montreal, Canada, in August 1972.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 138, no. 2, 1972, pp. 139–153. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1795958. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.

Obituary published in 'Geography':
Lawton, Richard. “R.W. Steel 1915-1997.” Geography, vol. 83, no. 2, 1998, pp. 188–188. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573164. Accessed 20 July 2020.

Update

Thanks to Chris Kington for telling me that Robert Steel was good friends with Sheila Jones and Pat Cleverley - see later blog posts for more images.

Update October 2020

Image from University of Swansea post, written by David Herbert. The best image I've found so far of Robert.

Image: Courtesy of the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University (reference UNI/SU/PC/9/1/2;75)

https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea-2020/page/on-our-doorstep

David Herbert said:

The RAE had a dramatic impact on universities. Now we had to focus on research and staff became much more aware of the need to publish; teaching was definitely pushed down the list of priorities. We saw that many staff were ‘research inactive’ and had not published for some time. Years later I was part of a conversation with Martin Harris, then Vice Chancellor at Manchester and one of the original authors of RAE. He admitted that they had sought to stimulate research at UK universities but had not fully anticipated some of the knock-on effects. There were of course other University level issues arising at that time, not least those emanating from the Department of Philosophy. These were not new. They had impacted immediately on Robert Steel when he became Principal. Robert was a geographer and I had known him before he came to Swansea. He once confided to me that he had been happily contemplating ending his career as John Rankin Professor of Geography at Liverpool before being tempted with the Swansea post. Certainly his early experience with the Swansea philosophers did not convince him that he had made the right choice. He settled well though with help from his successive Vice Principals, T.J. Morgan, Ivor Isaac and David Pritchard.

Update: December 2020

In 2003, Chris Kington asked a number of former Presidents what had sparked their passion for geography. He lent me the letters and a long standing member of the GA: David Cooper mentioned Robert as being particularly supportive of his plans to become a geographer.

He describes in Autumn 1954 having gained a scholarship "unexpectedly being taken into the care of Robert Steel. When he asked me what I wanted to be, I told him 'a University lecturer'. At Oxford, besides Robert Steel the other influences were Martyn Webb who I used to cycle up and down Cowley Road with...It was Robert Steel who encouraged me to research the Oxford Clay Vale Landforms."

Many thanks to Chris Kington for the loan of the letters.

Updated January 2021

Thanks to Elizabeth Steel for getting in touch in early January 2021 to provide a few additional details and corrections on this entry. I am very grateful.

Robert Steel was awarded a CBE in 1983, and joins other former GA Presidents who have received honours.

After he retired from being Principal of Swansea he became the Chairman of the Welsh Advisory Board from 1982-86. He also became an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College , Oxford from 1982.

In retirement he continued with his interest in Africa and was the British Council representative on the Councils of several African Universities. He went to meetings, I remember in Malawi and Lesotho

During his time at Liverpool three of his colleagues became Professors of Geography and have also been Presidents of the GA: Professors Gregory, Lawton and Patmore.

Updated August 2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walter_Steel  - provided a Norfolk link.

Also date of birth: 31 July 1915 – 29 December 1997

Robert Steel was educated at Great Yarmouth Grammar School and the Cambridge and County High School for Boys. 

He then attended Jesus College, Oxford, matriculating in 1934 and obtaining a first-class degree in 1937.

He also presented at the GA Conference in 1980 at the LSE.

@CanCommSchols alumnus Robert W. Steel (@Carleton_U, 1970, d. 1997) was a President of @The_GA, @ULiverpool13 for much of his career as Dean and pro-VC and also as Principal of @SwanseaUni. He was an expert in African and Tropical geography. https://t.co/GWa8QBQsvx

— Canada CommSchols (@CanCommSchols) August 21, 2021

1973-4: Strike!

1973-4 was a period of industrial action by many unions. I remember this period well - doing school work by candle light - the winter of discontent etc, the three day week etc.
Interested to see Denys Brunsden - who will have his own entry on the blog in due course - organising annual conference at this time.

It's one of many national crises which the GA has gone through, but with the help of members and volunteers and staff alike has come through.
And throughout these times, the GA has still supported teachers, just as we will be when we return to school in August / September 2020...

References

Ellis, W. R. A., et al. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 60, no. 1, 1975, pp. 63–74. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568701.

Constructing school geographies

It's worth reading this piece by John Morgan, which forms part of an Open University online course.
John talks about the importance of knowing something about the development of the subject.
He references the important work of Halford Mackinder.


While the 'old' geography was concerned with the collection of mere 'useless' information about places, the new geography was about 'training the faculty of sight in a detached pictorialisation of the drama of the world'. 

1973 - some reading

1973: Secondary Schools Section Committee

1973 - make-up of the Secondary Schools Section Committee, which I served on for 14 years and also involved several other former GA Presidents.


There are some more details of the operation of the committee here.


Source:
“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 58, no. 2, 1973, pp. 170–178. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567982. Accessed 17 July 2020.

1972: Mr. Alan Durward Nicholls

Updated November 2023

Alan Nicholls was another of those relatively rare people who was a geography teacher when he became GA President, and a great proponent of Environmental Studies. 

In Balchin's Centenary book, he is described as an "active Head teacher" and in an Annual Report in 1971 as a "revered practising schoolmaster".

I delved and found out that he served on the Secondary Section Committee (as I did for many years) and was a member of the Central London Branch of the GA - which suggests he taught in London, and later found out that he succeeded another GA President Leonard Suggate as the Head of Geography at St. Clement Danes School in Hammersmith, London.

Here's an image from a Facebook page for the school. For a while, the only one I could find.

New Geographies over Forty Years was the name of his Presidential Address, given in January 1973, and by all accounts from the description, a humorous one, although it was not apparently printed in 'Geography' and not available to view unfortunately. I wonder whether a copy exists anywhere?

1971 saw a surge of interest in the quantitative methods, so perhaps he referred to those, and how the might translate into school geography? I would like to guess that he did, given the timing of his address a few years after the Madingley Conferences.

In that year, the GA Spring Conference (as it was called) was held at the London School of Economics, where it was held quite regularly.
Prior to being President, Nicholls was also Assistant Honorary Treasurer of the GA as well - another President to hold that significant (and voluntary) role.

Environmental Studies was one area of interest which he pursued, and this is a reminder of the different strands of geography which are picked up by different Presidents for their theme, address and also perhaps areas of interest while in the Presidency.
This area was also picked up in the Professorial Address of C. A Fischer, I have previously blogged about from my British Library research.

Nicholls article on Environmental Studies was also useful - see the link below



This was featured in a book on the development of this branch of Geography


Nicholls was chosen as the GA's representative on the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) geography board in 1966, and I assumed from early research that he was more of an academic geographer, but this was not the case.

I presumed from that appointment he taught in London, and that was what Richard Daugherty (another former GA President) thought when I asked him about connections with Presidents who were in post near to his own Presidency.

He is mentioned in this book 'Defining the Curriculum'.

Ten years ago almost to the day and from this platform, Professor Kirk said 'modern geography was created by scholars, trained in other disciplines, asking themselves geographical questions and moving inwards in a community of problems; it could die by a reversal of the process whereby trained geographers moved outwards in a fragmentation of interests seeking solutions to non-geographical problems'. Might not this be prophetic for us today? Could it not all too soon prove disastrous if the trained teachers of geography moved outwards as teachers of environmental studies seeking solutions to non-geographical problems? (Nicholls, 1973, p. 201)

A contribution described here is from Nicholls too.

This quote would also chime with those who explore the value of teacher subject knowledge, a current interest of many.

Following another thread, I found a small obituary tucked away in Geography in 1981.

He was born in 1910 in Cornwall, and died in 1981. He went to Truro School. He was made an Hononrary Member in 1980 just before his death.



I'm grateful to Fiona Hirst, archivist from the Clement Danes School for sending me another image of Alan Nicholls from later in his career.




References

Book link: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W9GHPA3zK0IC&lpg=PA1651&dq=mr%20a%20d%20nicholls%20geographical%20association&pg=PA1651#v=onepage&q&f=false 

NICHOLLS, A. D. “Environmental Studies in Schools.” Geography, vol. 58, no. 3, 1973, pp. 197–206. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568109.

“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 66, no. 4, 1981, pp. 320–322. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570442.

I managed to find some images on a Facebook group page that was dedicated to the school, including an excellent image shared from a field trip back in 1953. This is one of my favourite images on the whole blog.

Thanks to the people who put the website together.
Here's Alan Nicholls on a Geography fieldtrip (presumably to North Wales)
Top of Snowdon, North Wales, 1953. Photograph taken by Jack Harvey and sent in by Geoff Skinner



He is fourth from the right on the front row and is described as "Old Nick" which seems fair. He seems to be having a good time as well. Some good fieldwork wear on display here, and great to see a President actually 'in action' doing some geography.

Thanks to Fiona Hirst for the additional details and image from the school magazine 'The Dane'

Updated November 2023

Revisiting past Presidents to see if I could find updates and came across an obituary in the RGS's Geographical Journal.

This reinforces his links with the RGS as well as the GA. He was the Chairman of their Education Committee and also served on Council. He studied at the University of Exeter. He travelled extensively.

He was a Cornishman.

"Good teachers are keen on their chosen subject and find it stimulating."

“Obituary: Alan Durward Nicholls (1910-1981).” The Geographical Journal, vol. 147, no. 3, 1981, pp. 394–394. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/633763. Accessed 1 Nov. 2023. 

4000 views

We are well into the project now. Just over half way through the Presidents that the GA has had, and with 50 Presidents still to come, which is a reminder of just how long ago 1971 is, and also scary.... This will be around one a week between now and September 2021 when the blog is scheduled to come to an end.

I've also just passed 4000 page views which is rather less than the 5.6 million that LivingGeography has had - in fact I used to regularly get more than 4000 views per day during the peak of the blog's views.

Impolite Geography on Black Lives Matter

In early June, I posted about previous anti-racist work which had been carried out by the GA and its working groups and volunteers.

David Lambert and John Morgan were involved in the production of a book for the GA, and they have just posted on their Impolite Geography blog some thoughts on the GA's statement and their own memories and reflections of the work the GA has done over the years, referencing several of the same documents I mentioned, including work by Rex Walford.
Well worth reading.

1972: Standing Committees

One of the ways to find out more about the work of the Association, and give something back, is to serve on one of its committees. From time to time, spaces open up, and you can ask to be told about any vacancies, or even act as a corresponding member.

In 1972, an item in 'Geography' outlined full details of all the GA's committees at the time, not all of which are still in existence, or have changed their names. As you will have seen from previous blog posts, there have been various committees reflecting important issues of the time, which have ended when their purpose has come to an end.




References
Article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40567921 (Subscription to Geography or JSTOR membership required to view)

Thought for the Day

"An awareness of the intricate relationships between man and his environment is a major realm for scholarly investigation and informed concern on the part of all men who profess to be educated. 

A heightened understanding of such relationships can be gained only through a disciplined investigation of both sides of the fence, the natural envuronment physical and biotic; and the human or cultural one. As a discipline only geography endeavours to maintain this perpsective."

H. Aschmann (1962)

Source:
EDWARDS, K. C. “Sixty Years after Herbertson : The Advance of Geography as a Spatial Science.” Geography, vol. 59, no. 1, 1974, pp. 1–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41414280. Accessed 17 July 2020.

1970: Canada Study Tour

The 1970 Study Tour was 50 years ago. It was the Trans-Canada tour, and an interesting event for the GA. The tour took a large group of educators to Canada - the largest ever GA tour.  There were 152 people involved, who travelled to locations across Canada.

Graham Humphrys told me of his involvement in February 2021

In the early 1970s I was one of the leaders on two field excursions to North America for Geography Teachers organised under the GA banner. 

The first was Trans Canada in 1971 and the second down the western Cordillera in 1973. (Bill Balchin and Alice Coleman were the main organisers for both and I think they may have been based in the Isle of Thanet GA Branch)

Study tours are still continuing now - run by the International SIG.
2020 saw the tour to Malawi.
I have previously blogged about a tour to Poland run by Patrick Bailey, which Chris Kington told me all about.

The 2021 GA tour to Nicaragua was launched in the latest issue of the GA Magazine.
More details will come later in the year.

1971: Professor W G V Balchin

Last updated August 2023

W. G. V. Balchin (William George Victor) was the author of a book which has been one of the most useful sources when writing this blog, and he finally gets his own entry in 1971, when he was chosen as the President of the GA for that year. He had a very interesting life.

In the intro to the book, he is named as:
MA, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Geography, University College of Swansea, Fellow of King's College London and he was certainly a tremendous geographer.

He was born in Aldershot, and was known as Billy.

"When he went up to Cambridge and found a treasure house of geography books, he described it as an Aladdin's cave and read voraciously." (from Coleman's Obituary)

After graduating he joined the Cambridge academic staff as a demonstrator. The next summer he became an Arctic explorer, based beside a glacier about 600 miles from the Pole at the head of Billefjord in Spitsbergen (another of several GA Presidents to have visited) 
While sailing up the fjord he spotted something that enabled him to test another contemporary speculation - isostasy. This postulated that the immense weight of the Quaternary ice had depressed the land surface and squeezed out some of the plastic sima layer at depth. When the melting ice front retreated, the sima gradually oozed back, raising the land again.

He knew that such recent uplift would not have allowed time to cut wide beach platforms like the Cornish ones but noticed shingle ridges, which are sometimes the product of a single storm. The further from the ice front, the more the returning sima would have lifted the land, so that while the ridges were only at sea level near the glacier, they should fan up southward. He proved this by professionally surveying 50 miles of coast, camping out when it became too far to return to the base at night.

The Norwegian government added his work to the incomplete survey of Spitsbergen and named a 5000-ft mountain after him at 79° North, now called Balchinfjellet.
This makes him, after Debenham, another GA President who literally has his name on the map.

Balchin's Presidential Address, delivered at the London School of Economics was called just 'Graphicacy". It included some useful images such as the one shown here, and has been referenced by other people quite recently and I recommend that you read it.
He had become closely linked with the GA in 1954 when he was first elected as a trustee of the GA, following the death of a number of former Presidents in close succession.



At the end of Balchin's Presidential year, there were proposals for a new Standing Committee on Graphicacy, which was the title of Balchin's Presidential Lecture.

From the obituary listed earlier...

William and Alice Coleman coined the term ‘graphicacy’ and when he was President of the Geographical Association, he chose speakers on this subject for the Presidential day, beginning with his own address. 

He created a warm welcome for the concept, which was taken in the art world also and potentially included engineering. At the time of the National Curriculum, graphicacy was considered an important element for Geography and Rex Walford has recently written that the graphicacy concept ‘… will always remain a defining landmark in the history of geographical education and those articles you [both] wrote about it in the 60s are still regularly quoted today in geographical magazines.’

Graphicacy was still important when I trained as a teacher in Hull in the late 80s. Here's a scan of some notes I typed up during my PGCE course, from October 1986 to be specific.




Balchin retired in 1981, and to mark the occasion, a book was published, of which 500 copies were printed.
It is called 'Concern for Geography'.
I got myself a copy, in a different binding. Mine is number 137 of 500.

Here's Balchin's photo from the front of the book.



In 1996, he was guest of honour at a dinner for the Isle of Thanet GA Branch.
Here's a description:
The 40th Anniversary Dinner was celebrated at the Walpole Bay Hotel in December 1996; the guest speaker was Professor Balchin of University College, Swansea. The attendees were welcomed by Elsie Weir, the Chairman. After an excellent meal, everyone was entertained by ‘The Serenaders’ led by Mrs Janice Reagan. This was followed by reminiscences from Alice Coleman, Prof William Balchin, Marjorie Woodward and Fred Fielder

Also a wonderful image: Source and Copyright: https://www.geography.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Get%20involved/GA_IOT_History_booklet.pdf



From the Balchin Society Obituary

He and Lily retired to her home county of Yorkshire, to the lovely little town of llkley, not far from Leeds where two of their children were working. He continued his work for Geography, supporting the various organizations. In the Royal Geographical Society he won the distinction of serving on the Council for 17 years. Thirteen of these were as Chairman of the Education Committee, when each year he arranged for speakers on a range of careers for geographers to speak to packed audiences of sixth-formers, and as the careers were different every year, the accompanying teachers also found these occasions fascinating. In retirement he helped frame the lecture programme of the Society’s branch in York.

He was also a keen supporter of the Geographical Association. During his years at King’s College he was the organizer of its annual conference, and he was a Trustee for many years. In Yorkshire he joined the committee of the GA’s Bradford Branch.
William always had a great sense of perspective, both looking ahead to the future and relating it to the past. For example, he was well ahead in his recognition of impending anniversaries, such as the 150th of the Royal Geographical Society where he outlined a schedule of celebrations that was closely adhered to in the event. He also wrote a the history of the Geographical Association on the occasion of its centenary and edited a book on the 75 years of the Joint School of Geography – a saga of cooperation between King’s College and the London School of Economics.

For the Royal Geographical Society he prepared an archive of all the geographers who contributed to the success of World War II, with some intriguing revelations. For example, it was a geographer, J F N Green, who cracked the Italian code, using his meteorological knowledge to identify and interpret their weather bulletins. This feat must have been just as impressive as the well-known non-geographical cracking of the German code, but unfortunately it was never written up in similar detail.

I also got hold of a digital copy of an excellent book that Balchin edited in 1970, with contributions from several other Presidents along the way. 
This is from the Internet Archive. 
Check out other books that can be borrowed and read after a download of Adobe Digital Editions.

Balchin died quite recently, in 2007, aged 91 - another GA President to live a very long life.

His obituary was written by Alice Coleman - a familiar name linked with many GA Presidents during her time at the GA.


Of course, Balchin has also been influential in most entries so far as he was the author of a centenary history of the Association which is pictured below, and is worth seeking out as a second hand copy as I did.


There is a Balchin Family Society, which provided the image for this post.

References

The Internet Archive has scans of several of Balchin's books, and others you can borrow.

No Wikipedia page - perhaps one is needed for Balchin, and several other Presidents too.

Balchin obituary: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-1521973781/obituary-professor-w-g-v-balchin

Image source: https://medium.com/nightingale/dvs-historic-datavisualization-may2019-6885f80780d5

https://balchinfamily.uk/professor-william-balchin-and-mount-balchin

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nbGcAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA47&ots=FWDWaCsx5p&dq=norman%20pye%20geographical%20association&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=norman%20pye%20geographical%20association&f=false - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005-8

If anyone has further information on W.G.V Balchin, please get in touch.

Updated October 2020

I've been sent a number of other images featuring Billy Balchin by Sheila Jones. Here he is talking to Sheila at the start of a GA Centenary Quiz in 1993 which will appear in a more detailed report on that event nearer the time. Bill Mead is standing in the background. I am not sure of the identity of the lady in red.

This image above is thanks to Sheila Jones. More to come when I reach 1993.

It shows the longevity of his involvement with the GA that this was over 20 years after he was President and he was still heavily involved.

https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea-2020/page/on-our-doorstep - some memories of Balchin are here too, by David Herbert.

One of the features of the Geography course was field-work. Apart from scouring the Gower and adjacent areas, we went off once a year to distant field-week locations. One year it was Devon and Cornwall, based in Exeter, another it was Ireland, based in Dublin. Memorable from the former were a long, seemingly endless trek across Dartmoor looking for tors. Each time our leader, John Oliver stopped at one, Derek Maling would say “Call that a tor” and on we went until he was satisfied. All of this would have been more tolerable if it had not been pouring with rain the whole time. 

In Ireland, we viewed numerous overflow channels and there was a typical Balchin moment. We stopped in an abandoned rural area, walled empty fields and broken down buildings and Professor Balchin asked for comments. As I had been to lectures by Stuart Cousens on the famine and its consequences, I waxed lyrical about the impact on landscape of poverty, starvation and migration. Professor Balchin listened and then said, “That is all very well, but what are the walls made of?” Granite was really the answer he wanted; the course was still mainly seen through the lens of physical geography!

Herbert later says of Balchin:

Bill Balchin was a warm and caring person when I had the chance to know him better; he even turned up from his home in Yorkshire at my retirement dinner when he was in his 90s.

Updated August 2023

From the GA Magazine in 2006 on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

A selection of of some local history books
10. Swansea and its Region
ed. by W.G.V.Balchin, 1971@SwanseaCouncil @Discovermore @WelshBiography@LibrariesWales @swanseamuseum@SwanUniArchives @SwanseaHistory @SwanseaHA @BernardLewis8 @KevJohnscymru@MikeDoyleComedy pic.twitter.com/M2w3Az02hB

— Gwyn Davies (@Gwynstato) August 26, 2022

1970s: ICT - the GA at the forefront...

In 1971, the GA joined the Standing Conference of School's Science and Technology (SCSST). This was concerned with the teaching of science and technology.

Computer software was increasing in availability and complexity and although it was expensive and of limited use, the potential was there for it to be used in the classroom. It took a while from here for it to gain traction, and when I started my training in 1986, there were still limited opportunities in many schools.
The GA started its GAPE initiative in 1978.
GAPE: Geographical Association Package Exchange.
The Geographical Package Exchange (GAPE) project enabled computer software to be produced, listed, reviewed and distributed. This was the forerunner of the ICTWG working group.
I have a number of books from this time, which will feature in future blog posts.


Peter Fox was particularly active at this time, and is still involved in the GA's ICT SIG and Education Group. Peter Fox and Andrea Tapsfield also wrote an important book on the use of technology, which will be featured in future blog posts.
I interviewed Peter for a chapter that I had been asked to write for the Routledge 'Debates in Geography Education' book and he told me more details of the support for GA members at that time.
Teaching Geography wasn't published until 1975, but when it was it included a regular feature on software packages with reviews.

Sources:
Hall, David, et al. “Computer Assisted Learning in Geography: The State of the Art.” Teaching Geography, vol. 10, no. 2, 1985, pp. 73–76. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23751122. Accessed 1 July 2020.

Ron Johnston writing about Stan Gregory's career and links with the GA and ICT appearing:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kVtwDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA90&ots=AHT4_XIJ21&dq=Geographical%20ASsociation%20Package%20Exchange&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q=Geographical%20ASsociation%20Package%20Exchange&f=false