Professor Eric Brown

I'm still interested in adding further details of people and connections with the GA - the blog is not over, although the main phase has been completed in terms of writing biographies of all former Presidents.

Please get in touch if you have things you might want to add.

I came across this obituary of Professor Eric Brown from 2018, who had a number of connections with the GA and the RGS.

An edited version of a remarkable career, with plenty of RGS and IBG related work as well.

Eric Herbert Brown died at Berkhamsted on 5 January 2018 at the age of 95. He taught geography at University College London for almost four decades, inspiring generations of undergraduates and mentoring dozens of research students. His doctoral work, published as The Relief and Drainage of Wales (1960) earned him the Back Award of the Royal Geographical Society and has become a classic work in physical geography. Eric was President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1978 and served as Honorary Secretary of the RGS from 1977 to 1987, and then Vice-President (1988–1989). He edited Geography Yesterday and Tomorrow (1980) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Society. 

The son of Samuel and Ada Brown, Eric was born on 8 December 1922 at Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. His exploration of the surrounding countryside, on foot or on bicycle, awakened his interest in geography, and a game of “brook jumping” introduced him to the meandering of streams. Having excelled in his secondary education at King Edward VII Grammar School in Melton Mowbray, he was accepted to study geography at King's College London. His first academic year was spent as an academic evacuee in Bristol, where he was tutored by Sidney Wooldridge who had a profound influence on his approach to geography and his subsequent career. From 1941 to 1945, Eric was a Royal Air Force pilot, after training at several bases in Britain and Canada. As a member of 517 Squadron, Coastal Command, he was involved in anti-U Boat operations over the Bay of Biscay and collected meteorological data on long patrols over the Atlantic to assist forecasting of weather in Europe. This contributed to the forecast from which General Eisenhower decided to postpone D-Day by 24 hours. 

Based in Pembrokeshire, Eric met a local farmer's daughter named Eileen Reynolds whom he married in 1945. After the war, he resumed studies at the King's College-London School of Economics Joint School of Geography and obtained a first class degree in 1947.

Following Wooldridge's advice, Eric accepted an assistant lectureship at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where Emrys Bowen was professor. With support from geologist Alan Wood, Eric researched the geomorphology of Cardiganshire for his MSc (University of Wales, 1949), and started work on his doctoral project covering Wales (University of London, 1955). He made field observations throughout Wales, usually travelling by motorbike. His investigations impressed Professor Henry Clifford Darby, whom he had met at an IBG conference, and he was invited to join UCL. After advice from Wooldridge, Eric began teaching in London in January 1950. 

Throughout his career, Eric's main teaching responsibilities lay with geomorphology and North America, the latter popular course being shared with Bill Mead. 

Beyond the British Isles, Eric gained field experience in Poland in the early 1960s of periglacial features and the techniques of geomorphological mapping developed there during the 1950s. This led to him making a significant contribution to all of the four meetings (one of only three such “regulars”) between November 1958 and January 1961 that began by proposing a Land Form Survey of Britain, and ended with the agreement to establish the British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG). The minutes of these meetings reveal Eric to have been a strong advocate for the Polish style of geomorphological mapping (of landforms) rather than the morphological mapping (of slope attributes) favoured by some others; as well as for the foundation of the BGRG (together with David Linton and Wooldridge). 

Eric retired in 1988 but retained many links with UCL and especially the Remote Sensing Unit. In 2002 his long and dedicated service to geography was marked by an honorary doctorate from the University of York, where his former student Sir Ron Cooke was vice-chancellor. Eric continued to be an active member of his local community in Berkhamsted, including its branch of the Geographical Association. He attended academic events at the RGS-IBG and meetings of the Geographical Club. 

He deepened his appreciation of rugby football and fine wines. UCL Geography emeriti enjoyed regular “pub lunches” until last year, when Eric would recall wartime experiences as if they were yesterday. A visit, with Bill Mead, to Gerry and Marion Ward in the south of France became an annual fixture. After the death of Eileen in 1984, he lived alone for three decades, moving into a retirement home only for his final months. Professor Eric Brown is survived by his daughters, Jane and Megan, and by his grandchildren in whom he took great pride.

GA Conference 1982

I recently had a query about the GA Conference in 1982.

From this description, it seems that due to the LSE being unavailable for the usual period of time (?) the sessions were divided between the LSE and the RGS. It was remembered by a few people in my network, who attended the event.

Here was the report from Conference Officer Barrie Morgan, published in 'Geography'

Annual Conference (Officer: Dr. Barrie S. Morgan)

The Annual Conference was held from 14th- 16th April around the theme "Focus on Europe". This was a new-style Conference since the sessions at LSE were confined to two days, preceded by a late-afternoon and evening session at the RGS. The success of these and attendant innovations were assessed in the report.

Source

Coates, Bryan E., et al. “Annual Report of the Geographical Association 1982.” Geography, vol. 68, no. 2, 1983, pp. 154–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40570663. Accessed 9 June 2024.

More to come on this...

Thought for the Day

"Geography furnishes entertainment for the young and gay and is a pleasing companion for the old and studious... [it] excites the admiration, interests the passions, entertains the fancy, eradicates prejudice and enlarges the faculties of the soul."

G A Baldwyn, 1797

From Bill Mead's Commonplace Geography

Bill Mead on the Commonplace

"A commonplace book has no ending; the snapping up of unconsidered trifles continues"

A little post in response to a post by Ryan Bate over on his blog from earlier today.

Ryan talked about the idea of the commonplace book.

He describes them as:

notebooks which act as a record of any and all interesting quotes, facts and ideas that a person would come across in the course of their reading and other pursuits.

I guess a blog is a modern example of a commonplace book. I mentioned a Commonplace Book that I own, whose cover is pictured here, compiled by Professor Bill Mead.

It was published in 2015, and was unfortunately published posthumously by John T Smith, who had been working on the book with Bill - who died just over a week short of what would have been his 100th birthday.

Bill was GA President in 1981. I met him several times when he came to Solly Street, and also at GA Conferences. He was a true gentleman and also an expert on Scandinavian geography.

The book is a collection of lecture transcripts (some previously unpublished - often on the theme of Finland and Scandinavia but ranging over a great many themes), including landscapes, statistics and Bill's own varied and rather wonderful life. He describes how he jotted down quotes from books in his home, and filled over 20 notebooks over the years - filling them with extracts and things which drew his attention. 

Such work relies on serendipitous discovery, and I've certainly done that over the years.

The book also includes a quote from a Historian called Zachris Topelius which I appropriated from my GA Presidential Lecture.

Bill provides a copy of the Maconochie Lecture he delivered at UCL forty years ago called 'Changing Lives, Changing Landscapes'. It also includes images of GA Presidents at a gathering, which was helpful for the research for my GA Presidents Blog.

There's also an excellent piece on the changing language of geography, which references the work of another former GA President Sidney Wooldridge who (with G Gordon East) wrote 'The Spirit and Purpose of Geography', of which I have a 1955 copy along with Dudley Stamp, Frank Monkhouse (the definitive text for my own 'A' level geography revision) and Torsten Hägerstrand.

There are some great quotes which I've gleaned for my own version of a 'commonplace book': these include:

"the principle of progress is the principle of superfluity' - Edwin Muir

"Rocks are metaphors for lansdscapes past" - Robert MacFarlane

"What makes life worth living is not the pursuit of happiness, but the happiness of the pursuit" - Brian Little

and this with which I shall conclude this post:

"Every continent has its own spirit of place. Every people is polarised in some particular locality, which is home, the homeland. Different places on the face of the earth hafe different vital effleuence, different vibration, different chemical exhalation, different polarity with different stars; call it what you like. But the spirit of place is a great reality." - D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classical Americal Literature, 1924

Professor Eva G R Taylor

Updated August 2023

Eva Taylor was the first woman to hold a Chair in Geography in the UK: at Birkbeck.

Eva G R Taylor worked with R J Unstead on work on regions and within the Birkbeck Geography department.

She was a ground-breaking female geographer and historian.

Regional geography was a key idea in geography for many decades, even through to the 1980s when I started my teaching career.

Source:

British Geography, edited by Robert Steel. (PDF download)

PROFESSOR Eva G. R. Taylor, an Honorary Member of the Institute since 1954, died in Wokingham on 5 July 1966, aged 85. She was a Fellow of Birkbeck College and Victoria Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society. From 1930 to 1934 she was Professor and Head of the Department of Geography in the University of London, and in 1944 became Professor Emeritus.

There are links here to a range of former GA Presidents and also A J Herbertson.

Image source:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2F941C5513B80DB4D1C8F4BCEF0F6B57/S0373463300042946a.pdf/div-class-title-eva-g-r-taylor-div.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Germaine_Rimington_Taylor

According to this, the first woman to hold an academic chair of geography in the United Kingdom.

From the document above:

In a broadcast talk about town-planning, Professor Taylor once said that to plan a new town on the lines she was criticizing was like 'trying to stop Tommy growing by refusing to buy him a new pair of boots'. It was typical of her forthright use of English. 

Many people know and respect her as a geographer and historian, but to many she is endeared by her absolute mastery of language: no stylist in the prissy sense of the word, but a writer in whom two great literary virtues were eminently found. First, the absolute reflection of the writer in the words—so that her tone and personality come through so unmistakably that no other person could have written them. And secondly, so complete a certainty of what she had to say that the language she used took on a natural, unforced, direct form that gave it immense pungency and punch. 

That clarity of mind extended not simply to the construction of each sentence but to the whole plan of the essay or book—an essentially classical virtue even more admirable when found in a person who had a poor opinion of the exclusively classical—to put it in terms that are probably historically out of date and that would (God rest her) perhaps infuriate her, an Oxford rather than a Cambridge virtue. As a historian, Professor Taylor was constantly dealing with movements, inventions, discoveries, manifesting themselves in persons: and no matter which of her writings you turn to, you will find (and this is what gives her writing such ease and clarity) that she never wrote until she had a clear picture of the personality behind the person. There are no lay figures in her work. It is supreme craftsmanship, even supreme artistry. 

RENE HAGU

Updated August 2023

Obituary in Transactions of the IBG

“Eva Germaine Rimington Taylor.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, no. 45, 1968, pp. 181–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/621401. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.

She was the President of Section E

She started out as a Chemistry Teacher

In 1905, while attending a vacation course in education at Oxford, she was introduced to geographical field studies. Early in 1906, she moved to a teaching post at a convent school in Oxford in order to complete her study for the Diploma in Education. In October of the same year, she became a student at the School of Geography and two years later obtained the Certificate of Regional Geography and the Diploma of Geography, both with a mark of distinction. 

From 1908 to 1910, she served as a private research assistant to A. J. Herbertson who 'considered her the most brilliant and able of the many women students trained under him at Oxford' (H. O. Beckit, in a testimonial dated 27 April 1916). 

She spent the years 1910 to 1916 writing school text-books and drafting wall-maps (in collaboration with J. F. Unstead whom she first met at Oxford in 1906); and in starting her family. From 1916 to 1918, she lectured in geography and in educational method at Clapham Training College for Teachers and at the Froebel Educational Institute. In 1920, she gave a course of lectures at Queen Mary College (then the East London College).

Also published in 'The Geographical Teacher' - 1916

Taylor, E. G. R. “THE FIRST STEPS IN GEOGRAPHY TEACHING.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 8, no. 4, 1916, pp. 224–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40554496. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.

Worth a read.

Source:

Beaver, S. H. “Geography in the British Association for the Advancement of Science.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 148, no. 2, 1982, pp. 173–81. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/633769. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.

Eva Taylor lectures were started in 1960.

The one described here was chaired by another former GA President: Michael Wise.

Of the speaker here he described his work during the war...

Wise, M. J., et al. “Planning and Geography in the Last Three Decades: Discussion.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 137, no. 3, 1971, pp. 330–38. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1797270. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.

Further memories of Eva Taylor are very much welcome.

"Professor Eva Taylor of Birkbeck College London University, the foremost authority on Tudor geography, arranged a facsimile publication and provided commentary on Forty Plates from John Speed’s Pocket Atlas of 1627.

Professor Emeritus Taylor, 1879–1966, was the first female professor of geography in the U.K., published prolifically, and was also renowned for her unconventional use of a walking stick: 

An academia.edu bio describes how “she used to point it at students when asking a question, as well as using it to hail taxies or even to hook Professor Darby’s leg to join her taxi from a crowd of people waiting.”

“Her writings were characterized by the extensive use of original sources and documentary evidence and they were always a delight to read.” This included “her two monumental volumes of the mathematical practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England (1954), and then those of Hanoverian England (1966)….”

Source: https://simanaitissays.com/2022/03/15/touring-tudor-england-with-professor-eva-taylor-and-google-maps/


And another biography here:

Taylor continued working well into her 80s, dying at Wokingham on July 5, 1966.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/taylor-eva-1879-1966

https://www.hakluyt.com/downloadable_files/Journal/DeClercqTaylor.pdf - an updated version of a lecture given in 2005. Mentions Bill Mead.

She was a partner of one of the Dunhills of tobacco fame it seems.

A Bill Mead mention of her lecturing at the GA Conference here (in 1946 just after WWII)

Another Eva Taylor lecture transcript:

https://www.davidbarrieauthor.org/blog/2022/5/5/sa7v7vbcfpleeb2datally3yqt5u23

Past Presidents' reception

For some time, there was a tradition of Past Presidents and Long standing members' receptions to be held at the GA Conference. I have been present at one of these some years ago, well before the idea for this blog came about.

While down in the GA archives at 160 Solly Street, I came across a photo album. There were several pictures from the 1993 Centenary conference meeting in there. Here are a few of them.

Frances Soar gave me some further information on the context.

"This is a Past Presidents' reception at Sheffield in 1993, I think, as Simon Catling was President at the time. It could be the first time we had run a special reception for Past Presidents.  We introduced it in response to comments that Past Presidents (and other long serving members) would welcome a chance for a get together with their contemporaries rather than have to try and find them amongst all the other attendees, given that the 'sessions' were no longer their main aim in coming to Conference."

In the top image, Julia Legg - a GA administrator - is far left.

Frances also told me that: 

"Long serving GA staff member Margaret Vickers (standing, centre). Margaret used to do all the conference booking administration. She retired when we moved to Solly Street."

 

On the bottom images, Simon Catling on the far right is chatting to the guests.

Julia Legg is just behind Simon.

I can see Bill Mead in the background chatting to someone who may be Molly Long.

Thanks to Julia Legg, via Frances Soar for providing further details of the lady in the blue dress in both photos:

The person in the corner, full face, is Mary Ellis, who was Assistant Editor ( I think that was her job title) for 'Geography' for many years and came into Fulwood Road regularly. I think her husband was Ronald Ellis and he may too have been someone involved with geography and possibly the GA - maybe Hon. Secretary?

Mary Ellis later received Honorary Membership from former President Wendy Morgan.

If anyone can identify any other people, please let me know.

Wartime - mass observation

Bill Mead, a future President of the GA wrote a letter in to the 'Geography' journal in March 1945. In it, he suggested that the disruption of the Second World War could be turned to advantage as there were doubtless lots of members of the GA who had been posted overseas, and whose experiences could perhaps be harnessed. I'm not sure whether his suggestion was taken up in an organised way,  but certainly many GA Presidents during the 1950s had seen active service, many of them in aerial surveillance and intelligence as can be seen in their entries on the blog. These fed into articles in 'Geography' through the 1940s and 1950s and undoubtedly shaped the next generation of geography teachers.

Source:

Mead, W. N. “CORRESPONDENCE.” Geography, vol. 30, no. 1, 1945, pp. 15–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40562423. Accessed 15 May 2021.

Thought for the Day

 From Bill Mead's 'Towards a Commonplace Geography'

"Geography furnishes entertainment for the young and gay and is a pleasing companion for the old and studious... [it] excites the admiration, interests the passions, entertains the fancy, eradicates prejudice and enlarges the faculties of the soul."

From the Introduction to G A Baldwyn's 'System of Geography' (dated 1797)

A Commonplace Book

This book was published posthumously, having been put together by Hugh Clout and Bill Mead over a period of a year. It collects a number of lectures by Bill Mead, and some additional content including quotes that Bill had collected for some time. I will post some elements from this book over the next few weeks as I read through it. 

1981: Professor William (Bill) Richard Mead

Updated August 2023

 “He was a very kind and considerate man who won the affection and respect of his many students. 
Self-effacing and modest he took a great interest in other people and was an inspiration to so many geographers.”

Bill Mead was a true gentleman and always a popular visitor to Solly St. with all the staff there, through to the time when I worked there, when I met him a few times.


He sadly died in 2014, just short of his 99th birthday - nearly a century of commitment to geography - quite a legacy left through the work of students he taught - a gift that all of us teachers can be justifiably proud of, and the many books and other written contributions. 

Bill worked as Professor of Geography at UCL IOE - a place with which he was associated for  decades, and which has many close associations with the GA.

I had the chance to talk to him during visits to Solly Street, and I know that for several of the staff at Solly Street he was very much their favourite visitor. He also attended conference regularly and can be seen on many of Bryan Ledgard's images from the time.

There was a celebration of his life at UCL in 2014, when a range of notable geographers, including Dr. Rita Gardner said a few words about his life and work, and how he had influenced so many others during a long and varied career. This provides a great deal of detail on his long and varied career and travels.

Bill Willett's tribute here tells you a lot about Bill's work.

"He said that his love for geography came from his childhood walking and riding in a pony and trap through the lanes and fields of his homeland."

Here is an interview with Bill, which tells you a lot about his upbringing and interest in the subject... a wonderful insight, and well worth an hour of your time as he identifies some key points in his life, and influences. He was a particular lover of Scandinavia. He talks about his own teachers, including one who had been in the army and travelled the world.


Bill trained as a school teacher, training at the College of St Mark and St John in London, and it was this which he often referred to as his real calling and introduction to the subject.

As with many geographers of the time, he also served during the war.

Mead joined the Royal Air Force in autumn 1939 as a volunteer. In 1940 he was posted to Mount Hope, Hamilton, Ontario, in an administrative role. In 1943 he moved back to England working for the Royal Air Force Educational Service. He was demobilised in 1946.

I like this quote from the UCL biography linked to below, written by Hugh Clout:

'Lectures were delivered without notes, as the spirit moved...replete with references to poetry, music, plays, works of fiction and even restaurants'.

Like many other Presidents, he has an association with the London School of Economics.

He was a student at Aylesbury Grammar School, and was remembered fondly there also, including on the school's website. This was followed by a long career in academic geography, and a long connection with UCL.

The library at Aylesbury School is called the Professor William Mead Library.

He wrote a really lovely memoir of his school days in the 1920s and growing up above a shop in Aylesbury - see the end of the post for a link to a copy that can be borrowed on the Internet Archive.

Bill also wrote many pieces for a number of magazines, and reviewed books for the London Review of Books. In one review piece from 1982, he described geography in this way when reviewing three books.

For many people, geography remains the story of exploration. But there is more to it than that, as these three books attest. They present the geographer as the student of landscape, as the environmentalist and as the ideologist.

Also on time:

"although geographers are principally concerned with space they have traditionally taken time by the forelock – time as a dimension of space. Sidereal time moved some of the earliest practitioners of geography. A whole school of geographers has developed around the concept of time as a resource, a resource made coherent by the formal division of time by markers, be they seconds or centuries. Academically, geography spans a borderland. It is among those disciplines that operate between the sciences and the humanities, between the mathematicians and the word-spinners. Its practitioners appreciate the implications of George Steiner’s thesis that for the scientist ‘time and light lie before,’ while the humanist, working essentially with words, is ‘drawn backwards’ because language carries the past within it."

Here's a lovely memory from a former UCL Geographer

Head of the Geog Dept at UCL when I did my degree. Absolutely charming man. On one fieldtrip to the Chilterns he visited us riding on his horse!

— Sue 🌍🕷️ (@Geogger) October 21, 2019

Bill contributed pieces to 'Geography', such as a 1959 piece on Finland, published when he was Reader in Geography at UCL, along with several books on Scandinavian countries and memories of visits there.

He became Professor at UCL in 1961. Head of the Geography department in 1966, he retired in 1981. He received many academic honours, and became a fellow of the British Academy

Bill became GA President as he retired.

His Presidential Address was on the 'Discovery of Europe'

In his Presidential lecture he explored different ideas of Europe, referencing Percy Roxby (former GA President), the author Patrick Leigh Fermor amongst many others.

He ended by suggesting a possible collective noun for geographers, something which crops up from time to time. I have suggested the word confluence: when we flow together we are stronger.

Here's Bill's suggestion: a cordiality of geographers.

He also left funding for a travel fund after he died. Details are here on a page which also involves an image of Bill riding.

Alan Kinder tells me that he also left a legacy which allowed for Scandinavian Geographers to attend the GA Conference.

An obituary by Hugh Clout mentioned this piece by Bill on the theme of 'Success'

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;

Who has enjoyed the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;

Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world better than he found it;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.

And concludes:

Bill Mead was a superb geographer of the highest international stature.  And he was such a kind, thoughtful, and generous man.

Through his scholarship and his humanity, he set high standards to which we can only hope to aspire.

For these remarkable qualities that enriched the lives of all of us.

We thank him and shall never forget him.

Some awards that Bill received:
Fellow British Academy, London School of Economics (honorary), Royal Geography Society (honorary vice president 1981, Founder's medal), Norwegian Academy of Sciences (honorary), Finnish Academy of Sciences (honorary), Scottish Geography Society (Research medal), Swedish Geography Society (Wahlberg Gold medal, Fennia medal), Orders Lion (Finland) (Commander), White Rose (Finland), Polar Star (Sweden), Order Vasa (Sweden).

Bill was still involved with the GA even in later life. The minutes of the AGM at the GA Conference in 2009, which I attended and presented at, show that he was in attendance, and I remember talking to him as it was the first conference since I had joined the staff of the GA to lead on Secondary Curriculum Development. In this, he reflects others with similar service such as H J Fleure.

Bill's was a life very well lived.

This Obituary from the Anglo-Finnish society is a lovely read, full of detail.

References

Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Richard_Mead
 - and we are back to a Wikipedia page for the first time in some years.

https://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/news-events/news/news-archive/2014/august-2014/tribute-to-bill-mead-by-his-friend-bill-willett

http://www.ags.bucks.sch.uk/professor-william-bill-mead/ - library

London Review of Books: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n05/w.r.-mead/an-exploration-of-geography
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n09/w.r.-mead/melton-constable

Biographical Studies: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KU08DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT117&ots=5ELMysnSPh&dq=alexander%20carr-saunders%20geography&pg=PT123#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KU08DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT120&lpg=PT120&dq=Professor+Robert+Ogilvie+Buchanan&source=bl&ots=5EMPsonUUg&sig=ACfU3U0p--u8LC_RwQu4YUxt-8vdP9MCVg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjy_bnp2MnmAhWRgVwKHS3VAksQ6AEwCXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Professor%20Robert%20Ogilvie%20Buchanan&f=false - a long description of Bill Mead's work.

This PDF document by Hugh Clout contains a huge amount of detail on Bill Mead's life and is perhaps the main resource to refer to if you want to find out more about him:

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/16%20Mead%201820.pdf - PDF download - over 20 pages on Bill and his legacy

MEAD, W. R. “Frontier Themes in Finland.” Geography, vol. 44, no. 3, 1959, pp. 145–156. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565048

Presidential Address:

Mead, W. R. “The Discovery of Europe.” Geography, vol. 67, no. 3, 1982, pp. 193–202. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570560. Accessed 26 Sept. 2020.

Obituary: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-bill-mead-wlmwnlppl3c

Anglo-Finnish Society: https://www.anglofinnishsociety.org.uk/focus/

Speech by the Finnish Ambassador at his Memorial event at the RGS in 2014: https://finlandabroad.fi/web/gbr/current-affairs/-/asset_publisher/4ojVRXvbDRVa/content/speech-by-ambassador-pekka-huhtaniemi-at-the-memorial-event-for-bill-mead/384951

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00291951.2016.1155642  

Images: copyright Bryan Ledgard and Geographical Association, used with permission

I would love to hear more memories of Bill Mead. I am sure that many people met him over the last forty years.

Updates October 2020

As part of the work on this entry, I bought a 2nd hand copy of Bill's 'Towards a commonplace geography' and this will feature in a few future posts as there is plenty of interest including an image taken at the GA's Centenary celebrations in 1993.

There will also be some further updates to this post as more memories of Bill arrive in my inbox.

Front cover of one of Bill's books:

Bill was also mentioned by Sheila Jones as an academic geographer who loved the GA and continued to come to conferences well after his career was over. She mentioned Michael Bradford as showing similar service.

Here's Bill at an AGM of the GA.

Image credit: Bryan Ledgard and the Geographical Association

"He was a lovely man and deeply loyal to the GA, turning up at annual conferences long after most academic geographers had become less involved, with a few notable exceptions such as Mike Bradford." - Richard Daugherty

Updated October 2020

Thanks to Brendan Conway for sending me this personal memory of Bill Mead:

Bill Mead was an expert on Finland and did a lot to promote links with the UK. He also had links with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies where a couple of my friends were studying. I seem to recall that his tenure at UCL was drawing to a close around that time I was starting my degree. 

He gave the undergraduates a pep talk and I remember him telling us to 'know where places are' which sounded a bit obvious until he explained how most people (including, it must be admitted, most of us) 'have no idea that much of Finland is east of Istanbul'. 

This was a small but influential incident, because it signalled to me the importance of challenging misconceptions. I've taken this approach throughout my teaching career, emphasising how ‘facts’ can be converted into more powerful geographical knowledge that has the capacity to transform the way we see the world.

His final article has now been published posthumously, edited by Hugh Clout

https://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/news-events/news/professor-bill-mead2019s-final-publication

Updated December 2020

Another former President: Simon Catling, told me in a personal communication:

Bill Mead, an academic geographer, seemed ever present, thoughtful, kind and challenging into his 90s. I met him first on a visit from school to the RGS for a Monday night lecture in 1965; he sought out our school group and was most thoughtful and supportive, always interested in young and new geographers, a real friend to geographers. 

He is missed.

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 Dick Lawton mentioned the influence of Roxby and other geographers including Clifford Darby and Bill Mead on his own academic career at the time.

He says they taught him not only about geography, but how to be a geographer...

Updated August 2023

Some tweaks and amendments.

Five books from Bill Mead are on the Internet Archive

Interestingly, the scanned copy of the book on Aylesbury was a copy personally presented to St. Paul's School in 2009...