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://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found in a person who had a poor opinion of the exclusively classical—to put it in terms that are probably historically out of date and that would (God rest her) perhaps infuriate her, an Oxford rather than a Cambridge virtue.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
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.Also published in 'The Geographical Teacher' - 1916
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.
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:
“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:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/taylor-eva-1879-1966
