Another post on people who were never President, but served the Association in various ways.
Conzen was born in 1907 and died in 2000.
1935–2000: Member of the Geographical Association - 65 years a member!
Michael Conzen was born in Berlin, the only child of parents with strong artistic bents. Conzen decided that geography was going to be his subject through map reading, hiking in the countryside, and reading, not through the inspiration of his teachers. He entered the University of Berlin's famed Geographical Institute in 1926, when it was at the zenith of its intellectual reputation. He was taught by, amongst others, Albrecht Penck, Otto Schlüter, Hans Bobek and Alfred Wegener, the latter of whom gave lectures on his revolutionary theories of 'continental drift.
In 1933, Conzen fled Germany for London where his fiancée, and future wife, Freda, was studying. There was little call for geography teachers in depression-hit Britain and so, thanks to the advice proffered by the then Geographical Association President, H.J. Fleure, Conzen enrolled as one of the first two students on a new course in town and country planning at the University of Manchester, subsequently working for four years as a planner in Cheshir
Fleure's involvement was through the International Student Service that was engaged in trying to help the many young refugees entering Britain in the 1930s and 40s.
Freda was employed in the GA office, typing, packing up parcels for the lending library and the like; whilst, 'Con' was employed to redraw many of the maps for publication, and became one of the regular reviewers of books for Geography through the later 1930s (signed G.C.). This was good practice for writing academic geography in English and culminated with one of the few reviews published in Britain of Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography in volume 2.
In 1946, Conzen moved to Newcastle where he began lecturing for GA Branches all over the north of England through the 1950s and 1960s.
He is survived by his son Michael, Professor of Geography at the University of Chicago.
Happy to learn more about Mr. Conzen's involvement with the GA.
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