Primary Geography Journal - Spring 2025

The theme for this issue, edited by Ben Ballin, is the Geography of Togetherness. 

I am very pleased to have an article in this issue on this theme. 

Thanks to Ben for asking me to contribute some time ago. 

Subscribers can now download the digital issue and print copies will be arriving shortly. There are some other excellent pieces in this issue too as always, including a lovely contribution by Sharon Witt and Helen Clarke and also a personal piece from Steve Rawlinson on the loss of the Sycamore Gap tree.

In my article I talk about rural and urban ex/inclusion of certain groups and offer some suggestions of projects that might be of interest to explore this topic with pupils.

Alice Coleman

Upated February 2023

Alice Coleman has been a great supporter of the GA throughout her long life and particularly associated with the Isle of Thanet GA Branch.
She is now aged 99 and an Emerita Professor of Geography from King's College, London, according to her Wikipedia entry.  There is also another GA link with King's College.

Alice is particularly noted for directing the 1960s Second Land Use Survey of Britain and for analyses of land use planning and urban design which have influenced the design of residential developments since the 1980s.

The 2nd Land Use Survey of Britain followed on from that led by Dudley Stamp, but was more detailed in its approach.

As I have previously reported from the Thanet Branch Centenary document: (PDF download from this link)

"In late 1955, Alice Coleman, of King’s College London came to the now defunct Medway Towns branch of the Geographical Association to speak about the then unexplored aspects of the Moon. Marjorie Woodward at the time was the Secretary of the branch. Both had been educated at Clarendon House Grammar School (Photo 2 in Appendix A) for Girls and both Marjorie and Alice had their roots in the Isle of Thanet. After a geographical discussion, each promised one another that if ever either of them should return to live there, they would form a branch of the Geographical Association. After the meeting of these 2 ladies, the birth of the Isle of Thanet Geographical Association was quite sudden. A pilot committee was set up in November 1955 where it was decided that the new GA Branch would be open to all who were interested in the post-war developing world. Students would be particularly welcome and take part in the increasingly popular fieldwork with excursions to a wider area and that a magazine would be published."
After many meetings of the committee consisting of Alice Coleman and Marjorie Woodward, George Wooster and Ken Girkin of Chatham House Grammar School, Peggy Hopkins of Clarendon House Grammar School, Ken Maggs, then in the Army, and Alan Kay of Margate, the first meeting of the Branch took place at Charles Dickens School in Broadstairs on 30th January 1956. A classroom had been booked but so many people arrived at the meeting that chairs had to be hastily removed to the Assembly Hall for the meeting to convene. Friends were quickly co-opted as committee members to help with the collection of the subscriptions; 80 signed on as members on that first night. Despite the inclement snowy weather, a triumphant Committee celebrated next day at the “Little Vienna” café on Broadstairs Jetty.

She was President from 1955 onwards and her name is scattered throughout the Branch history for the next 60 years!
She attended the 1993 Centenary weekend of the GA as well. I have looked through the batch of photos that Sheila Jones sent on but can't see her shown there.

I purchased a copy of the 2nd Land Use Survey Handbook, which Alice Coleman wrote along with Ken Maggs from the Thanet Association.

The full story is told in the Thanet Centenary document:

https://www.geography.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Get%20involved/GA_IOT_History_booklet.pdf

In 1975, Alice Coleman won an award: "Woman in a Man's World", which is an award of its time, but very well deserved - hopefully there was some champagne involved.

Alice is an urban geographer, and I was very interested to see that she was also the subject of an article by one of the urbanists I most admire: Jane Jacobs, and that she actually popularised the idea of defensible space in urban planning in the UK.

What a service to the Association, and a life well lived.

References

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

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2427.12047 - Jane Jacobs article on defensible space.

“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 60, no. 2, 1975, pp. 146–152. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568383. Accessed 8 Nov. 2020. - her award mentioned in the Annual report for 1975

Updated section

This will be Alice Coleman's centenary year which will hopefully be marked in some way.

This article from Create Streets talks about her work with Margaret Thatcher to influence housing policy in the 1980s. (PDF download)

There are some images here (licensed) and here (Shutterstock) showing her at work.

Further research articles:

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9sw3c9vf - details on her urban research

Her books can still be located: