David R Wright

Not a GA President, but someone bound up with the work of the Association in many ways is David R Wright. He produced a series of best selling map books and atlases, and also worked as a PGCE tutor at the University of East Anglia, which was where I first met him in the early 90s. As you can see from the article below, he was also another geographer associated with St Catharine' College (and always remember to spell that with an 'a' by the way...) and to have Gus Caesar as a tutor. Gus was very much connected with a whole range of former GA Presidents including Margaret Roberts.



He contributed to a range of GA publications and articles, always on the theme of mapping.

The last time I saw David was at the Royal Geographical Society in 2008. He was receiving an award, as was I. He was unwell at the time, and sadly died the year after.

The following text and the accompanying image are copyright RGS-IBG

David Wright, who died on 20 November 2009 after a battle with cancer, was a geographer and author whose work inspired children around the world.

David graduated from Cambridge University and then trained as a teacher, undertaking an MA in Geography in Education from London University, Institute of Education. He taught in Stevenage and Pittsburgh before moving to Norfolk in 1969 as a lecturer in Geography at Keswick Hall College of Education, which was later merged with the University of East Anglia, where he worked for 12 years. He took early retirement in 1994 to further his research and writing, becoming a self-employed author, school inspector, adviser and consultant.

Throughout his career David was a champion of the use of equal area maps in teaching and in publications of all types and his (W)Right World Map was launched in 2007. He also advocated the use of stamps in engaging young people with an interest in places and examples of a virtual journey using stamps can be found on Discovering the Arctic 

I have this pencilled in for an activity in my new KS2 Schemes which I am developing with colleagues in a unit called 66 North.

Throughout his career David’s concern has been to stimulate children’s interest in the world by creating pupil-orientated approaches to teaching geography and innovative ways of linking geography, environmental and sustainable development education, all rooted in his experiences of many different parts of the world.

David was a past chairman and president of the Norfolk branch of the Geographical Association and his contribution to geographical education was acknowledged in 2007 when he was awarded the accreditation of ‘Chartered Geographer’ by RGS-IBG. In 2008 he was awarded the ‘Ness Award’ by RGS-IBG for his work championing the wider understanding and popularisation of geography through his work with children.

David's obituary on behalf of the Geographical Association was written by Margaret Roberts and published in 'Geography'. It has often been the job of GA Presidents to have that sad duty.

David also wrote a book in the GA-published series 'Theory into Practice'.

It was called 'Maps with Latitude'

Reference
https://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/alumni/landmark/1/landmark1.pdf - p10

Obituary: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167487.2010.12094301

RGS-IBG Obituary: https://www.rgs.org/geography/news/david-wright-(1939-2009)/

As always, if anyone has memories of David please get in touch, or add a comment. Many people will have used his work and books I am sure.

1988: GA Awards began

1988 saw the first GA Awards. This was a new initiative for the GA, but continues to this day, and I have been fortunate to have quite a few of these over the years, including a number of Silver Awards.

Here were 1988's winners, which included a former President.

On textbooks

"Suppose you put all geography teachers in a heap, and pull out all those who are teaching it as a second subject. Then pull out all those who are running the school play and the Second XI and haven't a lot of spare time for original thought  thought and for assembling their own resources. Pull out those who are a little more lazy than they ought to be. Pull out from the heap those who are experimenting widely and deeply with two or three classes, and find that they need something to fall back on with other classes. Pull out also those in their first or second year of teaching. If you pull out all those, you're left with a body of experienced and knowledge able and enthusiastic teachers who can quite probably get on without a textbook. But they will be a small minority, and most teachers, for most of their teaching, need some help of the kind that a textbook can supply. And the durability and availability of a textbook, as well as the wide choice of books, makes me think that the text book can't be beaten."

Ernest W (Bill) Young

Author of the classic 'A Course in World Geography' with J. H. Lowry (which I used when at school)

From an interview with the late David R Wright
Young, E. W., and David R. Wright. “Authors and Their Books: ‘A Walking-Stick, Not a Crutch.’” Teaching Geography, vol. 2, no. 4, 1977, pp. 173–175. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23750488. Accessed 9 June 2020