Complex Locations

I hope that in the blog I have flagged up some important female geographers who played a significant role in the development of the GA. Quite a few of them are featured in this book, which can be downloaded in full from the link below.

Bonus points if you can name the three ladies on the front cover.

Source

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

Alice Coleman's Centenary

There is a separate post for Alice Coleman on the blog.

This year marks the centenary of her birth.

See later update.

Image source: https://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/mui/sius2014/LorettaLees_SIUS.pdf

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2427.12047

In an article in 'The Guardian' in 2019, Lynsey Hanley (author of the excellent 'Estates') talks about Alice's contributions to improving people's lives and campaigning against concrete tower blocks. 

I am reminded here of some classic schools' TV programmes from the 1980s set in Glasgow - part of the 'Geography Casebook' and looking at the problems of the city's redevelopment, with Kitty Murphy describing how it used to be in the tenements they replaced with the streets "so warm and good".

https://theconversation.com/tower-block-boom-how-high-rise-apartments-became-the-height-of-luxury-56178

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/28/delicate-sense-of-terror-what-does-concrete-do-to-our-mental-health 

More to come as the Centenary gets nearer.

UPDATE

Sadly we heard of Alice's passing in May this year, just before her 100th birthday. 

A celebration of her work is in the Summer 2023 issue of GA Magazine.

Dr. Hilda Ormsby

Updated October 2023

While researching the blog over the years, I have come across a whole range of interesting characters who have made a contribution to the development of geography and geography eduction.

From the LSE Flickr page.

Here is Dr Hilda Ormsby, in a striking image taken c1910

Dr Hilda Ormsby died on October 23rd 1973, a few days before her 96th birthday. (I like the tendency for significant geographers to live long lives).

She was born in 1877. 

She was the country's longest living geographer at the time one could argue, for she had been both a student of and then assistant to Sir Halford Mackinder, one of the founders of modern geography, a former director of the School, and its first Professor of Geography - and also a former GA President of course.

Indeed Mackinder tried out on her a draft of his famous book "Democratic Ideals and Reality."

Mackinder's successor as Professor was Rodwell Jones, who was the brother of Hilda Ormsby, and the brother-sister partnership is thought to have been the only one on a British department of geography. 

In 1931 she became one of the very few geography holders of the D.Sc (Econ) and was appointed Reader in 1932. 

Although she retired in 1940 she gave some lectures in the next two sessions whilst the School was in Cambridge. 

In both World Wars she served with Naval Intelligence. Many geographers put their analytical skills to good use at this time.

During the first she worked on terrain analysis, and in the second helped to prepare handbooks on France. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the School in 1962...' R.J. Harrison Church, LSE Magazine, November 1974, No48, p14

The LSE has a Prize named after George and Hilda Ormsby. This link with Prizes is important.

What would a Parkinson prize involve?


Source of the image:
IMAGELIBRARY/286
Persistent URL: archives.lse.ac.uk/dserve.exe?dsqServer=lib-4.lse.ac.uk&a...

Image link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/3983646216/in/photolist-cGh6nJ-pKnCbQ-aqZG3N-752ees-27ucW6-27tbt6-ncdewT-neg3Kr-nei3z3-nei1s7-ncbP5Q-ncdkam-byRuRo-negxP9-neeKnp-9B4qf5-25iHZpy-7eGKzo-24EKuGj-y7C36s/

Text linked with the image...

Updated October 2023

It seems her maiden name was Rodwell Jones... a familiar name... more detail here....

She also features in this book

Free download

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