Biographies of all the Presidents of the Geographical Association since the founding of the Association in 1893. Researched by Alan Parkinson (GA President 2021-22), with contributions from others, including the former Presidents themselves where possible.
Showing posts with label Birmingham University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birmingham University. Show all posts
R H Kinvig is mentioned in a few documents referenced when I was searching for information on Michael Wise. He was connected with the University of Birmingham,. and also other presidents including Percy Roxby.
He served as President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1957.
Obituary, written by Michael Wise of whom he was a mentor, as he was for Harry Thorpe.
Wise, M. J. “Obituary: Professor R. H. Kinvig.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 135, no. 3, 1969, pp. 485–87. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1797428. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
Michael Wise was 58 when he became the GA President, and working at the University of Birmingham. He is one of the most interesting and influential of all the GA's former Presidents, and has had one of the biggest impacts on geography with his varied connections and outputs.
He was born in 1918, and was brought up in Birmingham, and later linked with the University of Birmingham during his career. He went to school with L J Jay (Leslie Jay), who worked as the Honorary Librarian of the GA from 1954 to 1973 (see previous post)
Here is a paragraph from the appreciation of L J Jay that Michael wrote following Jay's death in 1986.
In it, he describes the influence of the geography teacher they both had while they were at the same school as pupils.
This is always worth remembering: the improving power of taking part in the community of practice that is the GA.
Michael was Programme Secretary to the IGC and was one of the IGU Presidents as well - this international work is important, and is continuing to this day. David Lambert certainly led a great deal of international work within the GA, and Alan Kinder and Becky Kitchen continue to work in other countries to develop their curricula, as well as another former President Margaret Roberts who has worked extensively in Singapore to develop their school geography.
Michael served on various Government commissions and committees (which would have contributed to the Policy work of the GA, something that continues to this day at that level). The connection with policy work is something that I have got increasingly involved in during the first year on the GA's Presidents Group as it is currently called. This has included consultations with OFQUAL, who are currently not getting particularly good press for their judgement over this year's exam results.
There is a Michael Wise room in the Geography department at LSE. This was renamed some years after his death. Some memories of him here.
One particular contribution Michael made was as a member of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) during the late 70s and early 80s. One of the things that he did while there was to establish a Fellowship. One person who got the fellowship turned out to be Doreen Massey, who became one of the most influential geographers in recent decades, and also a former Honorary Vice President of the GA. (Doreen will have a post on the blog in due course)
His Presidential Address was called 'Geography in Universities and Schools. It tackled the issue that we still talk about today - the possible disconnect between school and university geography. It is worth reading, using the link at the bottom of the post.
He was interviewed in this film here, which provides a little more background to his interests, and makes him another rare President to appear on video until much closer to the present day:
Interview with Professor Michael Wise, Former President of the International Geographical Union, London School of Economics and Political Science. Interviewed by Anne Buttimer.
Michael also served as a member and President of many learned societies and was one of only two UK academics to have been President of all three UK geographical societies - the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Association and the Institute of British Geographers - as well as the International Geographical Union. He received the RGS Gill Memorial award in 1958 and Founder’s Medal in 1977, among many awards, and received the CBE in 1979.
(from the BBC obituary) At his 90th birthday party, held at the LSE, according to the lengthy Independent obituary: He read from a primary school essay that he wrote: “My favourite lesson is geography. I will tell you why. It is because it teaches me all about the world and all the things upon it.”
Michael was featured in a volume of Biographical Studies.
He wrote a chapter in a book that I have a copy of called 'Geographical Futures', and this paragraph is taken from that
Michael was mentioned by several former Presidents whom I was able to contact.
For example, Chris Kington very kindly lent me a copy of a journal piece that Michal wrote with his memories around becoming a geographer. Wise, M. J. (2001). Becoming a geographer around the second world war. Progress in Human Geography, 25(1), 112–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913250102500112
This described some of his early geographical adventures.
I've previously mentioned a quote from this article which describes how he came across a book by H J Fleure.
He recalls being on active service in the Middle East, and the great pleasure he had in Baghdad in 1942 which came from "finding a copy of Fleure's Introduction to Geography (1929) and the poignancy struck at this time by his concluding words: 'the lives of men are bound up with the little bit of earth that is given to each to love, and the student of geography must set himself to understand the links that bind him there, and not only there, but also the very different ones that bind him and his fellow men in all lands' (p.79)
Wise was a doughty campaigner for geography throughout the educational system, doing
much work behind the scenes, in committees and other fora, as well as publishing papers
such as that advocating geography’s role in technical education (1961a) which advanced his
wider claim that geographers should (p.348): "base our arguments not on the side-door entry of geography as a general
education for citizenship, and as a background subject but, through the front
entrance, on geography as a disciplined, practical study with its own
techniques and tools directly applicable to the problems and tasks of the day.
… Let us make geography a subject which does things, not merely one which
reads about other people doing them."
And he wanted action to ensure that happened.
A few years later, in his presidential address
to the GA, he called for it to ‘involve itself more actively than it has done in the recent past in
debate on educational matters’ (1977b, 249) in an ‘aggressive defence of our subject and its
approaches’ (p.256).
He noted that the discipline was changing rapidly in universities and
wanted this recognised in schools, despite their need to cater not just for university entrants
but also to ‘many groups of pupils with different ambitions, plans, and values’ (p.233). Steel
(1983, 40 and 112) reports in his history of the IBG that Wise facilitated constructive
engagement between the RGS and IBG councils in 1981, leading to the establishment of a
Council of British Geographers (the two societies merged a decade later), and was
instrumental in a far-reaching restructuring of the British National Committee for Geography,
the body that, through the Royal Society, was responsible until 1990 for British geography’s
links to international bodies such as the International Geographical Union and the
International Cartographic Association (Anon. 1970; Geographical Journal 156, 1990, 350).
Larger plans for a Council of British Geography, initiated by the GA, were unsuccessful then,
and although a council was established a few years later it has not played a major role, having
last met in November 2012 (http://www.cobrig.org.uk/ (accessed 20 May 2016)).
During his
RGS presidency Wise was also involved in the discussions that led to the establishment of the
Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, later the Academy of Learned
Societies for the Social Sciences (http://www.the-academy.org.uk/ (accessed 20 May 2016).
Wise, Michael. “The Campaign for Geography in Education: The Work of the Geographical Association 1893–1993.” Geography, vol. 78, no. 2, 1993, pp. 101–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40572491
This is a useful document and have referred to this several times during the writing of this blog.
Michael was made an Honorary Member of the GA in 1980.
Michael sadly died in 2015, aged 97 - another former GA President to have approached 100 years of age.
Address: WISE, M. J. “Geography in Universities and Schools.” Geography, vol. 62, no. 4, 1977, pp. 249–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568785
Wise, Michael. “The Campaign for Geography in Education: The Work of the Geographical Association 1893–1993.” Geography, vol. 78, no. 2, 1993, pp. 101–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40572491
I studied under Michael Wise 1957-60 and have the warmest memories of his teaching and his personal kindness. We found we were fellow residents of Finchley. I recall going to his inaugural lecture when he got his chair. His enthusiasm for human geography rubbed off on me and with his encouragement I became a town planner. In the 90s I met him once or twice when I was in LSE for BSPS meetings and he was the same as ever. Another nice memory was a field course in his original home ground of the Midlands: a gaggle of us were in an old quarry near Dudley and a small boy was eyeing us questioningly. Far from ignoring him, Michael greeted him with “Hello, our kid”. It’s the little things that you remember!
Update October 2020
He is remembered fondly by Richard Daugherty, who sent me a copy of a letter he received from Michael following the successful launch of 'Teaching Geography' journal which he helped make a case for. It was characteristic of him to thank people in this way when they did work for the GA, something that I hope Presidents have been getting better at in recent years.
Update November 2020
He was also fondly remembered by Denys Brunsden who told me:
The most influential President in my time was Michael Wise (also a fabulous Treasurer), before that S.W.Wooldridge was a monumental presence and Dudley Stamp put the GA on a sound financial course especially with his advice to Michael and in many 'hidden' ways.
Those who were at Juniper Hall will remember the final evening’s entertainment of Wise on the piano and Wooldridge rendering songs by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Although he was instrumental in setting up seminars and courses for graduate students, his teaching was to undergraduates both in the Joint School and inter-collegiately for some special options. He continued Stamp’s interest in Applied Geography - his involvement in regional planning shifted from the West Midlands where it was honed, to London and the South East.
Those who still remember the closure of LSE in 1969 and the highly charged political atmosphere will recall LSE’s finding room to continue teaching in Kings and temporary LSE Geography HQ in The Surrey, a pub then in Surrey Street. His military service during World War II, when he gained the Military Cross in Italy, was adapted to the organisation of field courses and handling student humour. Cooperation with colleagues applied across the range of courses, as I discovered when I returned as Lecturer. His door was “open” in the sense that he made time for us and students.
We remember a long list of faithful secretaries whom he cared about, as well as other technical staff at LSE. Even when he was Pro-Director after his “retirement” in 1983 he eagerly agreed to promote students’ suggestion for a new electric locomotive on the West Coast line to be named London School of Economics. This was duly performed by Sir Huw Wheldon, LSE’s chairman of governors. in 1985. One of his last visits to LSE was to witness the unveiling of the conserved name plate in the George IV pub, now a part of LSE in February 2008.
Michael Wise’s involvement in many of the School’s committees and those of the University was always in favour of student welfare, mostly academic. He was adept at garnering allies to achieve his aims. He supported staff and student when needed. Michael also remembered old students, retired staff not only academic or geographical, knowing their individual circumstances often to our surprise. Largely by his efforts he organised and ran for a long time the Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust in memory of his former colleague. This benefitted from his contacts and powers of persuasion, such that funds are still available, through our links with the Royal Geographical Society, for scholars registered at UK universities.
He saw his career as one to serve others, following his mentor R.H.Kinvig at Birmingham.
Michael Wise was only the second geographer to preside over all three main learned geographical societies.
His work on the Departmental Committee on Smallholdings and the Ministry of Transport’s Advisory Committee on Landscape Treatment was recognised in the appointment of CBE in 1979. Internationally his work for the 1964 International Geographical Congress in London led to the IGU presidency and many international honours.
At the centre of his life were his family – his wife Barbara, who died in 2007, daughter and son, five grand-children and four great-grand-children to whom he was devoted. An obituary was published in The Independent on 13 January 2016.
Ron Johnston and I would welcome any recollections any members may like to share.
Michael’s first and last published research papers (1948b, 1977) were on the teaching of geography.
As a trained teacher, he placed great store on how geography was taught, as reflected in his commitment to the work of the Geographical Association (GA), and his presidential addresses to that body, the Institute of British Geographers (IBG), and the RGS. To the RGS in 1981 and 1982 he took the opportunity to promote geography as the ‘rewarding study of the rich mosaic of life and landscape’ (Wise 1982, 307).
The GA, established by Mackinder and others in 1893 at the height of the crusade, continued the campaign over the next century, celebrated by Wise at its centenary (Wise 1993). He contributed substantially to those campaigns, as in his membership of a committee that considered the overlap between geography in school sixthforms and university first years (GA 1962).
"Geographers should base our arguments not on the side-door entry of geography as a general education for citizenship, and as a background subject but, through the front entrance, on geography as a disciplined, practical study with its own techniques and tools directly applicable to the problems and tasks of the day. … Let us make geography a subject which does things, not merely one which reads about other people doing them. "
He was Treasurer of the GA from 1967 to 1976, and its President from 1976 to 1977, and was President of the IBG in 1974, having previously served on its council and then as a Vice President; he was made an Honorary Member in 1989. He gave much time to all of these posts, taking good care of their resources and dispensing much quiet and sage advice, as he did also to the Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust, established after the 1964 London International Geographical Congress to provide grants to young scholars; he was its Secretary from 1966 to 1988, and then its Chair until 2005 (when he was made its honorary President).
He was also the founding President of the Transport Studies Society and for ten years (1973–1984) chaired the Executive Committee of the Association of Agriculture and, although he held no office, he was much involved, as his unpublished 1992 paper shows, in the negotiations that led to the establishment of the Regional Studies Association.
Interesting given the news about Alan Kinder's new job for 2024.
Updated July 2024
Bibliographical Studies of Geographer volumes - this one can be partly read on Google Books.
He did so much in his lifetime! A remarkable contribution to geography.
Harry Thorpe was a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Birmingham, where he spent his career.
Sheila Jones kindly provided me with some detail, including his first name. She said he was very supportive of her when she became President the following year. This also led me to a few other additions which has fleshed out the entry for Professor Thorpe.
Harry was born in Chesterfield, and went to Chesterfield Grammar School and then went to Durham University where he won their Maltby Prize as an undergraduate. As with many geographers at the time, he saw service in the war, and it's also good to see that he spent time as a school teacher at Accrington Grammar School, prior to the war.
In 1969, Professor Thorpe became the second chair of Geography at the University of Birmingham.
He made a particular study of Rural Settlements, and contributed chapters to a number of texts. I love the opening paragraph to this chapter to explain why places are different.
Professor Thorpe also wrote other books on this theme.
Harry Thorpe was also involved in a government review of allotment ownership. A specific area to be interested in, but allotments have proved their worth for many during lockdown.
The decline in allotments led to a Government review of allotment provision in the UK chaired by Harry Thorpe, Professor of Geography at the University of Birmingham. Thorpe and his committee were responsible for establishing a new vision for post-war allotment provision, a radical shake-up with allotments to be seen as a rewarding, leisurely recreational activity. From this University of Birmingham page.
As part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ and ‘Grow More Food’ campaigns, allotment holding had peaked during World War II to 1,452,000 plots over 143,000 acres in England and Wales. War time regulations regarding allotments had ended by 1950. The rise of the affluent society, the TV set and the motor car all contributed to the immediate post war down turn in allotments. During the 1950s and 1960s allotments went into decline as people sought to buy their food from the new supermarkets and convenience stores rather than grow their own. The national decline led to a Government review of allotment provision in the UK chaired by Harry Thorpe, Professor of Geography at The University of Birmingham. Thorpe and his committee were responsible for establishing a new vision for post-war allotment provision in England and WalesAlison Smith wrote this account, which has some references to Professor Thorpe.
At this time, as for most of the GA's history, the President was only involved for the one year, rather than the current structure which is that they serve as Junior Vice, Vice and Past Presidents either side of their Presidential year.
He was the Chairman of the GA's Birmingham Branch from 1953, making it one of the largest in the country. He was also President of the Worcester Branch, one of several that I have had the pleasure of speaking at.
He sadly died unexpectedly, following a protracted illness in February 1977, aged 64.
He was awarded the OBE for his services to allotments the previous year. I often think of Harry when I see a good set of allotments.
His obituary was published in 'Geography' and written by Gordon Warwick.
This provided a range of useful additional information on Harry's work for the GA as well.
Obituary:
Warwick, Gordon T. “Obituary: HARRY THORPE, 1913-1977.” Geography, vol. 62, no. 3, 1977, pp. 222–223. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568739. Accessed 20 July 2020.
If anyone knows any more about Professor Thorpe, please get in touch - this is a rather brief entry.
Updated November 2020
I followed a lead to his work on allotments - he was described by one person as the 'Beeching' of allotments because of his work on them which led to some disappearing ultimately...
Harry Thorpe was born in Derbyshire in 1913 and was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School and Bede College, Durham. He was awarded a first class honours degree and the Maltby Prize. He was a demonstrator at Durham from 1933 to 1936 and began work on the historical geography of the county with particular reference to rural settlement. He gained an MLitt degree but his research was interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1939. He worked as a schoolteacher in Accrington for a short time, before being called up to the Royal Engineers. He served in the Geographical Section of the General Staff, later the Directorate of Military Survey, and in Sri Lanka, India, and Burma. He ended the war as Major, and gained a technical grasp of the map making process which helped him in his command, after the war, of a Territorial Army Squadron in Birmingham.
In 1946 he was chosen by R. H. Kinvig to be his senior assistant in the development and expansion of the department of geography at the University of Birmingham and he remained there for the rest of his career. He was appointed senior lecturer in 1951, reader in 1954, and professor in 1964. He was Head of Department from 1971. He continued his work in historical geography and gave special attention to the problems presented by rural settlement forms in the British Isles, undertaking comparative studies of rural settlement forms in north-west Europe, particularly Denmark. He also carried out research into the historical geography of settlement in the West Midlands and made studies of patterns of land use in Birmingham, Lichfield and Wormleighton. He worked with P. D. A Harvey on printed maps of Warwickshire.
He was President of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society 1974-1976, and served as president of both the Birmingham and Worcester branches of the Geographical Association. He was president of the national Association from 1974-1975.
In the mid 1960s he was asked to serve as Chairman of a Departmental Committee in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to inquire into the state of allotments and to suggest changes in policy. Many of the suggestions made in the Report were adopted. He continued this work and became recognised as a leading advocate in the campaign to transform the allotment into the 'leisure garden'.
He was President of the National Society of Leisure Gardeners from 1970-1976, and President of the International Federation of Leisure Gardeners in 1974.
He was awarded an OBE for his services in 1976.
He first became ill in 1976 and died on 14 February 1977
http://calmview.bham.ac.uk/GetDocument.ashx?db=Catalog&fname=US137+Papers+of+Harry+Thorpe.pdf - PDF download
Source: Obituary in The Geographical Journal, Vol 143, No. 2 July 1977 pp.364-365 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1795950 accessed December 2012
"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.
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.
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. “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.
