Bristol GA Branch

GA Branches are starting to post their programmes for the year ahead.

The GA Bristol branch has a good website and has started to post events.

The first one is from Robin Markwell.

Wed 23rd Sep 2026: 7.00-8.30 pm

Robin Markwell (BBC reporter, producer, presenter)

Reporting on environmental impacts of mining and much more (draft title)

Robin will draw upon his extensive experience working for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service with stories of relevance for geographers.

Sheila Jones Legacy Fund - now available for applications

 Very pleased to see this earlier today on the GA website.

The Sheila Jones legacy fund is now available.

The first 100 eligible network events that are received after 1 Sept 2022 will be able to claim a legacy package of £100 each to support their networking event.

More information about the fund at https://t.co/qK3A3WBJGZ#geography pic.twitter.com/ymuXrecZ53

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) September 6, 2022

Sheila Jones was an inspirational geography teacher who had a lifetime of involvement with the Geographical Association. She was the first female teacher to be elected GA President in 1975 and her considerable service to the GA was recognised in 2007 when she was awarded Honorary Membership of the GA. She was also a member of the GA Bristol Branch and became the National Branch Officer.

The GA is very grateful to the estate of Sheila Jones for a legacy donation of £10,000 that has been received. Sheila was a great advocate of networking and therefore, this donation will be divided into 100 packages of £100 each and used to support, rejuvenate and develop networks through the GA.

The first 100 eligible network events that are received after 1 September 2022 will be able to claim a legacy package of £100 each to support their networking event.

Events supported by the Sheila Jones Legacy Fund will be asked to share a PowerPoint slide at their network event which celebrates Sheila’s contribution to the geography education community and to complete a case study that the GA will collect and collate together to share with the GA community.

I was very pleased to be able to exchange a number of emails with Sheila when I was developing my GA Presidents blog.

Sheila's own entry can be read here.

Sheila Jones - 1929-2021

There is sad news to report in this entry.

I was told yesterday by Jeremy Krause of the passing of Sheila Jones, President of the GA in 1975, and the first female teacher President.

Sheila passed away in Southmead Hospital in Bristol, a city she was associated with for so long, along with other former GA Presidents.

Sheila's entry on the blog can be read here. It is packed with information of the impact of her selection as President, and how things were changing at the GA at the time, and her own journey into geography and how important a person she was in the GA's history.

I had the great pleasure to exchange emails with Sheila over the last few years as I worked on this blog, and she was also able to send me a batch of photographs and other memorabilia of her time at the GA, and also her memories of others that she worked with.

The Geography community has lost one of its pioneers.

I would like to pass on my condolences to Sheila's family, colleagues and friends. Memories of Sheila welcome here.

Image: Sheila with her long standing GA members badge.

Susan Pike, the current GA President, shared some of her thoughts on the significance of Sheila's contributions to the GA

1. Remembering Sheila Jones - 1929-2021 who passed away this week. Sheila was the 3rd Female @The_GA President (1975). Here's @GeoBlogs on Sheila: https://t.co/OYip4AAvgu pic.twitter.com/3Rlspc1I6a

— Dr Susan Pike | GA President 🌍 (@SusanJPike) June 5, 2021

Here's a letter from Sheila regarding the disconnect between school and academic geography.

Jones, Sheila M. “Letter to the Editor: Contact with Schools.” Area, vol. 8, no. 3, 1976, pp. 223–223. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001121. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023. 

2007: Mr E John Westaway

John Westaway is a big character, and had many roles in education, starting as a teacher, and also working for SCAA, and as an author of numerous books.

He has been a prolific author, and I've certainly used his books many times during my career, particularly in the early years.
In the early 1990s he was writing for Heinemann: slim books with lots of pictures and illustrations, including some GYSL content. I remember using this book in my first teaching job, at John Flamsteed School in Denby in Derbyshire in the late 80s. 

There were some good activities and engaging contexts which I tought worked really well.

He has a strong link with Bristol, as did a group of Presidents around this time, which was mentioned in his Presidential lecture. They included some Presidents from an earlier era including Sheila Jones and Pat Cleverley.

As we get nearer the present day it becomes possible to see more resources that Presidents were involved in creating, particularly digital materials and access them more easily. Dudley Stamp didn't leave many powerpoints behind in his archive - or at least I don't think he did.



Here's John's Presidential lecture, which I was present at, on Slideshare, uploaded by local Brizzle boy (and great supporter of the GA) Tony Battista. It was my first Conference as a GA employee, which added a whole extra layer of activity to the three days.

John Westaway\'s Keynote PowerPoint from tonybattista

This section provides some background to John's career and interests.

Here's a biography from an event that John keynoted in 2008.

John was born and educated in Bristol before attending the London School of Economics, Imperial College and the Institute of Education in the University of London. He taught within the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) throughout the 1970s moving on to be Warden of the ILEA Geography and Environmental Studies Centre in the 1980s. 

He served as Professional Officer for Science at the School Examinations and Assessment Council in the early 1990s and then as Professional Officer for Geography at the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority 1993-97 and at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (with Education for Sustainable Development) 1997-2006. He is married to a geography teacher and has two adult sons – one a career geographer and one a primary teacher. 

 Now retired John is living back in the West Country at Clevedon, indulging his passions for Bristol City Football Club, Gloucestershire Cricket Club, walking, reading and swimming in the Bristol Channel (summer only).

John attended the 125th Anniversary meal at Christchurch College, Oxford
Here he is with Sheila Jones, a former President who has already featured on the blog numerous times.

Thanks to John himself for providing the following details by responding to the Google form that I set up for all the living Presidents to respond to:

He was born in Bristol in 1949, and educated at the QEH (Queen Elizabeth's Hospital School), Bristol 1960-67. 

He moved on to the LSE: 1967-70 (B.Sc. Geography) 

Followed by Imperial College, London 1970-71 (M.Sc. Transport) LSE 1971-73 (PhD - unfinished!) 

Institute of Education, London 1973-74 (PGCE) - another GA President with a strong connection with the IoE.

Career:

Teacher - Christopher Wren School, White City, London. 1974-77; 

Hampstead School, London. 1977-81 

Warden of ILEA Geography & Environmental Studies Teachers' Centre. 1981-89 (including London Regional Co-ordinator of the Geography for the Young School Leaver/Avery Hill Project) School Examination and Assessment Council (SEAC) Professional Officer for Science. 

1989-93 School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) (Professional Officer for Geography, 1993-97 Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), Professional Officer for Geography and Education for Sustainable Development. 

1997-2006 Author - A Social Atlas of London (co-author, 1974); People in Cities (1984); Urban Patterns & Processes (co-author, 1988); Urban-Rural Links (co-author, 1990)

Jeremy Krause mentioned him as being a particularly supportive colleague.

He has had a varied career with different roles either teaching or supporting teachers, and with some field studies in between.

I remember the SCAA publications coming out when I first started teaching, and we made use of them. Another former GA President: Eleanor Rawling, was also particularly involved in SCAA and QCA.

John had just retired from his last role, which was as an author when he became the GA President in 2007.

John's chosen conference theme was Sustainable Geography - looking at making geography sustainable and promoting its central contribution to education for sustainable development. 

He told me: 

"I picked it because it was essentially what my working life had been about since the mid 1990s. Involvement with the GA leading up to that time. I have had little involvement since completing my presidential four years."

John also told me of his wider involvement with the GA, and why being a member is so important:

"The GA has been an important part of the last 25 years of my working life. It was always an important part of sustaining geography in the school curriculum, a role which increased as other support (notably local authority advisory services) diminished. Other than attending sixth form GA lectures and, later, GA Conferences at LSE, my involvement began in the 1980s, partly through promoting GA activities and publications through the ILEA Geography Bulletin and through membership of the GA Field Studies Working Group. Later, in my roles at SCAA and the QCA, I worked closely with the GA in all aspects of curriculum, assessment and qualifications. I also sat as QCA's representative on the GA Education Committee."

Of his time as President:

"I'm not sure about successes (other than being President when the Governing Body took the momentous decision to purchase Solly Street). 

My main memories are of the sheer professionalism and hard work (not to mention unflagging good humour) of those doing paid or voluntary work for the GA. On a personal level, my main memory is of the stress of preparing my presidential address, despite having done numerous talks to geography teachers over the years. I vowed never to voluntarily put myself into such a stressful situation ever again!! 

This is a reminder to myself to start on that early... which I have with this blog.

John also told me a final interesting fact: that his wife had been taught geography by another former President and Bristolian Sheila Jones.

John also sent me this picture taken at Temple Meads Station in Bristol with a teaching group heading somewhere on a fieldtrip in 1975. I wonder whether some former pupils might recognise themselves on this one. If so, feel free to get in touch with your memories of Mr. Westaway.

As always, memories of John and his time as GA President welcome.

References
https://www.slideshare.net/tonybattista/john-westaways-keynote-powerpoint - watch the whole thing.

Rawling, Eleanor, and John Westaway. “Exploring Creativity.” Teaching Geography, vol. 28, no. 1, 2003, pp. 5–8. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23756441. Accessed 23 Dec. 2020.

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

Name the President

A puzzle for you. 

Which GA President is this, at Temple Meads Railway Station with a group of students in 1975?

In the days when British Rail offered very cheap group day return tickets for school groups.

Image supplied by the President in question...

1984: Miss Pat J Cleverley

Updated December 2020

Pat Cleverley was involved with the GA for many years before her Presidential year began. She was the second female teacher President of the GA after Sheila Jones in 1975.

Throughout the late 1970s and 80s before taking up the role, she represented the GA on a number of committees and also had a role in other aspects of both the GA and the RGS (which was also very common until more recently).
She has a strong link with the city of Bristol, which has provided a number of Presidents over the years, as mentioned in John Westaway's Presidential address, and still lives there to this day.

A memory from Rex Walford here:
"There was some fieldwork involved in the two Madingley conferences which I attended (1966 and 1967), I think) but my most memorable formative experience of that period was attending a week in 1968/1969 led by Dr C. Board (ISE) and Dr C.D. Morley (King's). It was run as an in-service course for teachers and based in Central London at a hall of residence in Cartwright Gardens. From memory, Rex Beddis, John Everson, Brian Fitzgerald, Pat Cleverley and Sheila Jones were also participants in the course...."

She was also mentioned and pictured in John Westaway's Presidential Address, which is shown below.

 

She had a long teaching career and was a member of the Secondary Schools Section Committee (now the SPC), which I also served on for almost 15 years, latterly as Secretary.  Several other GA Presidents have served on this committee over the years, and it makes a good proving ground perhaps for those who want to develop further in their involvement with the GA.

Pat taught geography (of course) at Withywood School in Bristol and was teaching at the time she was President - a rare thing as regular readers will know. 

The school itself closed in August 2008. Another colleague from the school also presented at Pat's conference.

Pat was also involved in the push for the GA to launch a journal for teachers which became 'Teaching Geography', first published from April 1975 as we have seen recently. More to come on that from other Presidents over time.

Pat wrote reviews of many books, which were published in 'Teaching Geography' over the years. I've similarly been asked to review books while on the SPC (as have other members) as well as helping judge the GA Publisher's Awards. This is all part of the ways that people can contribute to the work of the Association and support the staff at Solly Street. Pat also co-wrote a book on S E Asia.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25285988?versionId=30484891

Miss Cleverley was made an honorary member of the Geographical Association, and remains so.

I was put in touch with Pat in September 2020, just ahead of the writing of blog posts about other Bristol-based Presidents. Thanks to John Westaway and Sheila Jones for some further information on Pat. John kindly put me in touch with Pat.

Pat sent me a lovely parcel of memorabilia in October 2020.

This included an original photograph - a version of the one which was in the journal and shown at the top of the page. Pat is on the left, Vic Dennison is in the middle, and Sheila Jones is on the right - all based in Bristol. This was taken in Sheffield.

Pat is shown in this image sitting between Sheila Jones and Bill Mead.

Image credit: Bryan Ledgard and the Geographical Association

Here are the details that Pat sent through to me:

Born: Bristol, February 1935

1946: 11+ exam passed and headed to Colston's Girls School

1954-8: University of Bristol

Open Entrance Scholarship to Geography department. Graduated in 1957 followed by PGCE.

By 1958, Pat was on the committee of the local branch of the GA, which was very influential, and involved working with people from all regions. She regularly attended the annual conference, which was held over New Years, before New Years Day became a holiday, and always at LSE.

1985: Pat sent me the programme from her conference, and a copy of her Presidential address, which was called 'Classroom Hot Spots Change Again".

Pat also spent a number of years on the RGS Geography committee, which was quite influential because of the people who served on it at the time, but she felt it was not particularly active. 

Pat was the first President from a comprehensive school (they were relatively new at the time - when I started at secondary school in 1982 they were using up the old stock of folders which said High School on them...) This made her something of an "alien species" at the RGS at the time.

When Pat was GA President she was working as the Deputy Head of an 1800 pupil 11-18 Comprehensive school, and she ended her career as a Headteacher. Very impressive considering the pressures that both rolls produce.

In her Presidential year, she remembers being very busy. She had invitation to other banches, and went to as many as she could. She also attended the SAGT conference.

She finished her letter by sending her best wishes for my own GA conference, and some memories of attending the memorial service for Rex Walford, her predecessor as President, and the Cathedral being full.

References

Fyfe, Elspeth M., et al. “Annual Report of the Geographical Association 1985.” Geography, vol. 71, no. 2, 1986, pp. 160–168. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571092. Accessed 4 Aug. 2020.

Williams, Michael, et al. “Annual Report of the Geographical Association 1984.” Geography, vol. 70, no. 2, 1985, pp. 142–149. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571969. Accessed 4 Aug. 2020.
Mentioned in: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6100/1/6100_3452.PDF

If anyone knows of more information about Pat Cleverley and her time at the GA please get in touch.

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 Pat had sent a response.

She says that her father had influenced here, and also the teacher she had in Years 9-11 at Colston's - she maintained contact with her until she died.

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

1980: Mr. Vic D Dennison

Updated November 2023

When Vic Dennison became President he was a Lecturer in Geography at Filton Technical College in Bristol, an FE college. This makes him an unusual President to have had that role during his term.

Vic Dennison took over the Presidency at the start of the 1980s. This was a period when school geography came under threat.

He was involved in a number of committees of the Geographical Association over his many years of service to the Association.
He had a strong link with the city of Bristol, which has provided a number of Presidents over the years, as readers of the blog will be aware from more recent posts.
Vic also wrote reviews of publications for 'Teaching Geography'.

He was born in the city.

Source: https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/50126/page/53

His Presidential Address had a slightly different start. It was called 'The Use of Geography', and referred to his suggestion that as the Conference schedule was so packed, perhaps the Presidential Address could be taken out to make room for some other events. 


He referred to a great many things in the Address, which had a different feel to many I've read in that it was a very personal story rather than being research based or with a particular focus or theme.

He referred to his time as a teacher, and at the age of 18...

"...my Inspector decided that as a teacher I was too dour; but he knew that I wanted to go to university and that the only way I could do that was to sign the pledge to teach for five years, so he did not mark me down as unsuitable and I was allowed to go on. I seem to remember that the previous teacher President said that she was considered unsuitable as a teacher in her training days (Jones, 1976). Perhaps this will become a qualification for the Presidency."

He was not entirely convinced by the use of games and simulations in the classroom:

"At school level, I think we are making a mistake in concentrating on the conceptual approach, especially in conjunction with teaching methods more appropriate to mature minds. I am talking here about problem-solving exercises and role-playing games. I suppose it is fun to play games in the classroom but the thought of well-fed, energetic youngsters playing the poverty game is just obscene: and what an imagination a young pupil must have to pretend to be a Saxon invader in a foreign land looking for a site for his settlement - difficult enough for him to imagine the present world stage, let alone what it was like 1500 years ago."

I have not been able to find much else about his time at the GA, but have a few potential leads which may result in an update in the next month or so.

A contemporary of his, Sheila Jones, who was GA President in 1975, told me:

Vic was a long serving member of the Bristol Branch, teaching at Queen Elizabeth's School and Filton College of Education. For many years he attended the GA conference, always having a question or two at the AGM . When Pat Cleverley and I first went along to conference he was very helpful. He was a great field worker. He lived on the edge of the Mendips, an area about which he was very knowledgeable

References

“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 72, no. 1, 1987, pp. 77–79. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571227

Presidential Address: "The Use of Geography"

https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/50126/page/53 - this article provides a review of the conference in 1980 and some of the challenges facing the subject at the time:



It was interesting to see the session by an MP at the conference. He also said it wasn't the 'new geography' following Madingley which was the problem...


I like the idea of that... perhaps one to bring back...

If anyone has any further information on Vic Dennison please get in touch. I contacted the college as well to see if they have any records on Vic but they have merged with other colleges since he worked there... Images also welcome... This is a relatively brief entry.

Vic retired to the Mendips. I was able to find a little more about him from a society which was active there, which he was the Chairman of, and wrote a letter which was published in 'The Times' in 1986 on the theme of the Mendips AONB.

In 1995 he gave a talk in Weston Super Mare.

Updated November 2023

He was involved in a period called the Great Debate. This involved a great deal of effort on the part of the GA, including by Richard Daugherty and Rex Walford.

The Great Debate, launched in 1976, gave the Geographical Association ample opportunities to promote the study and teaching of geography in schools. Publications from the Department of Education and Science (DES) and Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) were scrutinised carefully by GA officers and members for mention of geography and of proposals which could have implications for the position of geography in schools. 

The central committees of the GA responded formally and informally, publicly and privately, as the Debate progressed.

Williams, Michael. “The Geographical Association and the Great Debate.” Geography, vol. 70, no. 2, 1985, pp. 129–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40571967. Accessed 1 Nov. 2023.

Gladys Hickman

Updated October 2023

Another influential person in the life of the GA was Gladys Hickman.

She was described in this piece in the GA Magazine as "an inspirational enthusiast for geographical education". She was made an Honorary member of the GA.
She was born in 1912 in East Sussex and grew up on a sheep farm on Romney Marsh.
She gained a first in Geography from UCL and took part in the first land use survey of Great Britain, becoming a close friend of former GA President Dudley Stamp.
Gladys was linked with the Bristol GA branch, having worked in teacher education at Goldsmiths and then Bristol University.
She worked on the Schools Council 14-18 project.
She was a well travelled geographer, and chaired the GA's Field Group in the 1960s and helped launch the Study Tours which the GA's International SIG still runs to this day.

She was also the tutor of former GA President Sheila Jones who told me in a personal communication:
Education year (1950-51), was a revelation with Dr. Gladys Hickman who introduced us to fieldwork opportunities and was a great innovator. Many of her students owe much of their success in teaching to her.

Sheila also wrote a history of the GA Bristol branch. This piece in the GA Magazine gives a flavour of her work.

She attended the 1993 Centenary Celebration of the GA, and Sheila Jones remembered her being there and wrote a little note in the letters she sent to me.

She was working into her 90s in retirement in Edinburgh, and supporting the work of the RSGS.


She wrote a book about Africa which stayed in publication for many years.


She died in 2006, and an appreciation was featured in the GA Magazine and an obituary in the Geographical Journal.


I read about Glady's life in this book as well.


Source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p_xfuY8CJ48C&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=%22marguerita+oughton%22+sheffield&source=bl&ots=xln_U09sEO&sig=ACfU3U0BVaFI8t74PC7xxPHMiijd8QoLyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbrsfys43pAhXKQEEAHeGlCCIQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

An Obituary, written by her son Richard, was published in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/oct/19/obituaries.mainsection

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0028-8292.1975.tb00753.x

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6xWsAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA1913&ots=Tsc_l8fz68&dq=gladys%20hickman%20geography&pg=PA1915#v=onepage&q=gladys%20hickman%20geography&f=false

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167487.2007.12094183

Updated August 2021

Found this in my Flickr account. It's a book in the Victorian Schoolhouse at Gressenhall Rural Life Museum a few miles from where I live in Norfolk.

Source:

https://epdf.tips/complex-locations-rgs-ibg-book-series.html