An amazing milestone to pass for a blog about the GA and its Presidents, which is one of my GA Presidential legacy projects.
Thanks for reading. I shall continue adding details of future GA Presidents (and updates on past ones...) indefinitely... If you have anything to add about the 100+ people who have held that role, feel free to get in touch...
This year once again, I connected with former GA Presidents, including the wonderful Margaret Roberts and Bob Digby - who remain active despite being in their 80s.
At the special meal for longstanding members, there were quite a few former Presidents; Eleanor Rawling, Richard Daugherty, Chris Kington, Keith Grimwade, John Hopkin plus Catherine Owen. Good to chat to David Balderstone and Paul Baker in particular, and catch up with Sandra Patterson.
It was also excellent to catch up with a whole host of other people including Justin Woolliscroft (who invited me up to Hull University each year when he was leading the PGCE course there. He also provided me with a handbook for my department to save me writing one from scratch. He was also heavily involved in the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. (I have a blog about that too....)
He was talking to Sue Warn - an 'A' level examiner legend.
I had a good chat with David Preece, who is the Head of Geography for Teach First. He was a member of the RGS Education Committee which I chair and always provided thorough and thought provoking contributions to our meetings.
Cath Rule and Rayburn Tours were there, handing out posters and details of their tours.
Paula Richardson spoke to me about the 5th National Festival of Fieldwork which she is spearheading as always. The first one was held during my GA Presidential year and it's a great initiative. Get involved!
Ahead of the session that Matt Podbury and I were presenting I also got a chance to meet Daryl Sinclair, who was part of the team that created the Discover Geography series.
David Wood and Catherine Souch from the RGS were at the GA Awards as were the Time for Geography team - who were picking up more awards for their excellent films. Simon and Rachel were on the RGS stand. Ashley and colleague were here from the Geological Society.
I also caught up with Tom Collins from the Environment Agency with whom I worked on the BETT Award winning Coastcraft resource.
Helen Young was also there to present on the Roblox resources on the BBC.
There were many more conversations during the day and a half that I was there, but I hope this gives you an idea of the great people you can bump into and chat too if you attend the conference... apologies to the great many other fine geographers who aren't mentioned in this post... catch you next year!
Another year and another opportunity to shape the work of the GA and be part of its history (and geography).
An election is being held for the GA President in 2027-2028.
There are three nominations this time round, which is great to see.
Rachel Hawke
Helen Martin
Sophie Wilson
You can read their statements on the link here:
All full personal, life, joint, concessionary and group members are eligible to vote. Make sure that you use yours.The deadline for voting is the 27th of February 2026.
This will mean the 5th female GA President in a row - certainly unprecedented in the history of the Association (as was 4 in a row, and 3 in a row)... Catch up with all the previous Presidents by visiting my GA Presidents blog if you haven't already...
The results will be announced at the GA Conference in April 2026.
The last few years has seen a significant and overdue shift towards teacher Presidents. I was the first for a while in 2021-22 but since then, we have now seen the beginning of four female state school Presidents in a row...
@geography_DAF the immediate past president @GeogMum the current vice president and next years president @RobboGeog the current president
— Fiona Sheriff 👨👩👧👧🌍 (@fiona_616) April 18, 2025
And me, the incoming vice president in September.
4️⃣female classroom teachers in a row.
4️⃣mums.
Making the mountain taller.#GAConf25 pic.twitter.com/JIplqULxB0
I hadn't updated the WordArt of all former (and current) Presidents' names for a few years... so made this earlier to ensure everyone is mentioned...
The GA President in 1978 was Professor Norman Graves.
Norman told me in an e-mail back in 2020 that: "I am conscious that the year of your birth, 1963, was the year I arrived at the Institute of Education to head the Geography Department."I started this blog when it was announced that I was going to become GA President for 2021-22. That was back in 2019 now.
I decided that along with my theme of 'Everyday Geographies' - which continues to be something I use in my work in various ways, I would research every previous President, and then keep it going to profile each President who comes after me.
It expanded into a general history of some key moments as well, and took in readings of all the GA's journals, all the Presidential addresses and several days down in the GA Archive stacks at Solly Street. I shall continue with it, and share important GA news and events, as well as adding biographies of future Presidents.
Thanks for reading....
St. Catharine's College, Cambridge has close connections with a great many prominent geographers, former GA Presidents amongst them.
We heard earlier of the passing of another former lecturer and Fellow Michael Chisholm.
Professor Chisholm was admitted to St Catharine’s to read Geography as an undergraduate in 1951. He went on to make fundamental contributions to economic geography and its translation into public policy, including serving on several government commissions. He returned as a Professorial Fellow in 1976, following his election to the 1931 Chair of Geography at the University of Cambridge in 1975. On his retirement in 1996, he became an Emeritus Fellow and turned his attention to advancing our understanding of the drainage and navigation of the Fens throughout history.We were sad to learn that Emeritus Fellow Prof. Michael Chisholm FBA (1951, #Geography; Fellow 1976–96), Emeritus Professor @CamUniGeography, died at home in Cambridge on 9 July. Our flag is at half-mast today in his memory: https://t.co/wb15zUqS3q @RGS_IBG pic.twitter.com/GgWHBfrqjq
— St Catharine's College (@Catz_Cambridge) July 16, 2024
There are now well over 800 posts, and I've referenced hundreds of issues of GA journals and other books and have a fleshed out biography of over 100 GA Presidents.
We've now passed 150 000 page views - another small milestone to have passed. Thanks for your interest, and as always if you have any additional information on any previous (or present) GA President, please get in touch. I'm still always keen to receive pictures taken at previous GA Conferences.
It can be accessed via the Internet Archive site and borrowed if you have a free account.
One of the chapters focussed on two British Geographers, and one of them was Percy Maude Roxby.
It included the image opposite.
Roxby was GA President in 1933.
The chapter starts with a description of Roxby which is excellent - he had panache.
He was 6'5" tall and saw each lecture as a performance.
There is a reminder that he trained as a Historian originally. He was influenced by lectures by Herbertson and Mackinder, and also Linton Myres.
He became particularly interested in China, which became a preoccupation.
He was also interested in the geography of East Anglia.
He produced his own regionalisation of East Anglia.
It is described by Roxby as having:
Mainly heavy and tenacious boulder clays, mixed arable farming, many commons.
He died suddenly in 1946, 2 years after retiring from his Chair at Liverpool University.
Following the call for nominations for the role of GA President 2025–26, an election is now taking place to discover the next GA President to succeed Hina Robinson, who will be GA President for 2024-5.
There have been several GA Presidents who have been revealed as working in aerial intelligence during the Second World War. This is explored in their entries.
For example, Michael Wise graduated in 1939, and served in the Army in Europe and the Middle East during the Second World War, reaching the rank of Major and was awarded the Military Cross.
Wise was awarded the Military Cross for his conduct in the fierce battle of the Argenta Gap in April 1945 (see Jackson and Gleave 1988). His company’s forward ground was overrun by a surprise enemy attack and its headquarters were under threat. The citation for his medal refers to his ‘calm and confident bearing … [as] an inspiration to all members of his company, and his manner of dealing with a most difficult and dangerous situation is beyond praise’.
During the war of 1939–45, intelligence was gleaned from aerial photographs by a newly founded organization that developed into the Allied Central Interpretation Unit. This was based primarily at Danesfield House (known as Royal Air Force Medmenham) some 50 km west of London, in Buckinghamshire.
David Leslie Linton gets a mention here. I know that he was involved in suggesting launch sites for the 'V1 and V2' weapons.
Work at Medmenham, although important for the war effort, required interpreters familiar with aerial photographs rather than geology as such – but geology did assist the search for storage sites for ‘V’ weapons, terrain interpretation for the 1944 Allied landings in Normandy, and in guiding plans to bomb German industrial complexes hidden underground.W G V Balchin wrote a useful summary which I have mentioned in a previous blogpost. He mentioned some of those involved and why geographers were useful.
Geography has always been vital to the prosecution of war, in three ways: first, intelligence is critical; secondly logistics (geographical factors influence the deployment of men, materials and firepower); thirdly, in action (geographical factors enter in decisions on the disposition of forces, where to attack or defend, what routes to follow, where to land invasion craft and so on.References
Thanks for visiting and reading.
If you have any further information on any former President of the Geographical Association, or even the current one, please get in touch.
I am always interested in hearing more information relating to your own experiences of previous GA Conferences (especially from years gone by), CPD events, books of interest, curriculum change and anything else GA related.
After four years as a trustee as part of my Presidential journey through the GA, my term in office comes to an end at the end of August 2023.
At the same time, there is also the end of a term of office for several other GA colleagues who I have worked with for the last four years. This means that there some vacancies on the GA's Governing Body, which is of course a good training ground for those who may have ambitions to become more involved with the Association and give back to the association and perhaps ultimately put themselves forward for Election for GA President.
There are actually four vacancies to be filled, which carry different responsibilities.
You can read more about them on the GA website page, and the links here.
For those who may have previously suggested that the GA and its Governing Body needs to become more inclusive and diverse, this is your opportunity!This is the 700th post on the blog, which tells the story of the 106 GA Presidents to date, and also the wider story of my own Presidency and other moments from the GA's history (and geography).
A very busy month once again, as they all are for GA Presidents in the run up to the GA Conference in April.
Started fairly quickly on the 1st of February with a GA Cambridge Branch lecture on supply chains. This is a good session and one with a lot of content which I'm happy to offer to other GA Branches or audiences. There's always plenty of relevant news stories in the media each week related to supply chains, including a timely article in the New York Times as well as a Guardian feature on a day in the life of a lorry driver. Check out the activity at your local GA Branch.
The 2nd of February was the Governance Working Group - this used to be called the President Group, and meets ahead of Governing Body to set the agenda and ensure that all the papers that are needed for that important business are in place.
Sadly, that was also the day I tested postive for COVID19, and the next week was a bit of a write off although I kept up to date with my inbox as much as possible when I felt up to it. Best wishes to everyone who has had COVID, and please make sure you get your vaccines and booster when offered to give the best protection if (and probably when) you test positive.
I am needle-phobic but felt no hesitation in going and getting jabbed at the earliest opportunity.
I spent some time during this period pottering on what I could do, lacking in energy a little and not able to do much for quite a few days:
- Judging five resources for stage 1 of the GA's Publishers Awards, ahead of a meeting of those who were sharing their thoughts to take them forward to the next phase.
- Supporting the Worldwise Board in planning for iGEO 2022
- Reading through Eleanor Rawling's work on the National Curriculum Framework (following on from GTE)
- Responding to a range of queries from GA members and others with regards to work / projects / conference etc.
- Worked on thinking through the early phases of a range of exciting projects, some of which will see the light of day and support teachers in particular parts of the country
- Reviewing book proposals
- Working on a GIS book
- Working on ERASMUS projects: GI Pedagogy and D3 - both of which are coming to a close this year.
The GA President serves as a Trustee for the three years of their Presidential journey, and joins the GA's Governing Body.
They join a group of people who serve a particular period of time - usually between three and six years.
There are named trustees who are responsible for additional aspects of the GA's work, particularly finances. I also filled in an audit sheet. We often reflect on the nature of our skills and consider how to broaden the diversity of this group in the widest sense. There are also co-opted members, who are brought in because of their particular skillset and backgrounds.
Thanks to all those who have served, currently served, or will serve on Governing Body.
Wednesday 9th was a busy day.
I started with a session for the East London Geography Hub, presenting along with Brendan Conway.
This was on my Presidential theme of Everyday Geographies.
This was followed by me hosting GeogChat - a regular weekly twitter chat that takes place on Wednesday. The theme was about the Pandemic and its influence on the curriculum. I shared ideas and had some excellent contributions from others.
I blogged about the session here.
Goodness me. You have finally got the reigns of Geog Chat. You are the most powerful person that I know. Perhaps we should simply rename Geography as 'Alan'.
— GeographyPods (@MattPodbury) February 8, 2022
I also put together a session for teachers in Liverpool. They have the support of the Archdiocese of Liverpool School Improvement Trust (ALPSIT)
Thanks to the legendary Hywel Roberts for getting me involved in this event and other work with the trust which will continue up to the summer.
Our Geography specialist for our Subject Leader conf is Alan Parkinson @geoblogs Alan is Head of Geography @ King's Ely Jnr in Cambridgeshire, Author of 'Why Study Geography?', Chartered Geographer & Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society & award winning innovative teacher! pic.twitter.com/1lvJ5fvSin
— ALPSIT (@ALPSITnews) February 3, 2022
There were over 100 people signed in when I joined on the Tuesday to do an hour long canter through Primary curriculum making ideas, with some contributions from the thinking of Paula Owens, Simon Catling and several others.
I'm going to continue to work with ALPSIT until the end of the academic year by providing some ideas for their ASSEMBLE platform.
I popped to school to pick up some marking and other bits and pieces.
The final weekend of the half term was the 25th Charney Manor Primary Conference.
I was keeping an eye on the weather as there were two named storms in the forecast, the second of which would ultimately disrupt my arrival at the conference which was a disappointment. In the end, however, the storm was to have the last word as the Conference venue lost its power, so the whole event had to be cancelled until next year.
I returned to school for the final week of the month. A busy week it was too, with my continuing recovery from COVID:
- Further edits on articles for GA journals
- Reports, parents' evening and a Saturday Open morning to attend at school
- Some writing of examination materials for a company
- Some consultancy with AVANTIS, who create Virtual Worlds.
- Preparation for a 2nd session with teachers from a London based MAT - looking at concepts and enquiry questions in the curriculum
This now brings me amazingly to the half way point of my Presidency. It's going very quickly as everyone told me it would.
Twitter stats
December saw a range of activity in the first part of the month which came at the end of a long and varied term which was particularly tiring and challenging, with growing COVID cases in school, and waiting to find out more about the new variant and its potential implications for us, as cases rose and the threat of another lockdown began to loom the week before Christmas.
December 1st was the first of another month of activity supporting GA branches.The GA Birmingham Branch has continued with a programme of excellent speakers, including Ben Hennig.
Thanks to those teachers who came along, and to Bob for sending a recording of the session, which I think went very well.
The 2nd of the month saw the latest of our Parents' Evenings via Parent Cloud. These may well become one of the legacies of the pandemic, with the end to face to face appointments, or perhaps hybrid events.
My booster jab was given on the 3rd. Many people in the world are yet to receive their first vaccine, although impressively over 800 million Indians have received their first dose. It turns out this is going to very important with the Omicron variant.
ERASMUS projects have continued and we have negotiated extensions on the project as they have been majorly affected by the pandemic which has impacted on our chances to work with the teachers who are part of the project. They have been delayed and subject to alteration.
Zaragoza in Spain is a city that I have never been to (yet) and my trip there had to be cancelled last weekend following the emergence of the Omicron variant and changes to travel arrangements.
I also had to cancel a proposed trip to Romania in the New Year, and an event in London as well due to people having to isolate.
I also filled in my CPD log for my Chartered Geographer status this week. I have been a Chartered Geographer since April 2007, and the GA Conference will mark my 15th anniversary as a CGeog (Teacher).
To find out more about this opportunity to get accreditation for your CPD and other efforts check out the Chartered Geographers section of the RGS website.
I had a GIS resource to work on and spent some time on that as well.
I also put out the call for papers for the session that I have had accepted at the 100th IGU in Paris. If you would like to be part of the session you need to submit your abstract by January 11th. Let me know if you would like further information.
I also had to get copy for the Spring 2022 issue of my Webwatch column for GA Magazine's Spring 2022 issue finished. The magazine is getting a face lift in 2022 with a new format which means the full version of Webwatch will now be available to download with a smaller version in the magazine.
With the GA now passing 10 000 plus members (as you may have read in a piece I wrote for the GA website)
Christmas was a bit of a pause for most people.
I continued to potter on projects during the school holidays:
- The first day of the holidays I had a meeting with Alan Kinder.
- Wrote an article on the KS2 work I am doing at school. This will appear in 'Primary Geography'.
- Worked on ERASMUS project outcomes for GI Pedagogy and also D3 - check out the course we have created here.
- I also bought and started reading David Gardner's new book, which is out now as an eBook - it's excellent, and comes with an accompanying GeogPod broadcast which I listened to this week as well.
- I worked on finishing a new session called 'Click and Collect' to present at a number of GA Branches this coming year. It links with another resource I'm working on, which also connects with the idea of Supply Chains. That will all emerge in 2022, as part of my 'Curriculum Vitae'
Omicron cases continued to rise as we entered the final few weeks of 2021 and many of the teachers I follow on Twitter tested positive.
Here are the Twitter stats for the month as usual.
This is the 2nd issue of the 2nd volume of the ROUTES journal.
Well worth seeking out, particularly as I am pleased to have an article in the journal of my own research into the people who have previously held the position of GA President which is located in this very blog.
The editorial for the issue is here.
Well done to the other contributors to this issue as well:
Examining the impact of the East Coast Low Storm, June 2016 on Narrabeen-Collaroy Beach, Sydney, AustraliaWhy not suggest to your students that they write and submit an article for a future issue - all the information on how to do that is on the Routes website.
Thanks to editors Cyrus Nayeri and Lizzie Rushton, and the peer reviewers and to all those who have supported the journal in various ways, including submitting articles.
Cite my article as shown below:
Parkinson, A. (2022) Researching the changing professional profile of the Geographical Association’s Presidents 1893-2021. Routes 2(2): 67-79It occurred to me that Gill Miller, Susan Pike and myself are the latest in a series of "pandemic Presidents": those whose term of office have fallen during a pandemic. Hopefully Alastair Owens' will be immediately post-pandemic.
The last time that there was a similar pandemic was following the first World War.
At the time, the Spanish Flu apparently led to 1918 being the first year when deaths were higher than births.
The President in 1918 was Sir William Mitchell Ramsay
The President in 1919 was Professor Grenville A J Cole, FSA
It would be fascinating to find out more about the impact that the Spanish Flu had on the workings of the GA at the time.
This morning was the broadcast of an interview I had with Dorian Brown: a host on Teachers Talk Radio. Many former GA Presidents have found themselves on the radio, or television, and there are a few YouTube clips of former Presidents on some of the entries on this blog.
You can listen again here:
We talked about the GA and blogging and a whole range of other things.
If you enjoyed it, check out some of Dorian's other recent guests, also from the GA 'community'.
I plan to post an update here at the end of each of the 12 months so you can see what I get up to, and the range of activity that a President is involved in.
I received an article that I had written for Routes Journal back from the peer reviewers with some comments on changes to make ahead of publication in early 2022. This is one job I've been looking at. The article explores the research that I did for the GA Presidents blog over the last two and a half years.
Given my theme of everyday geographies there's certainly been something to do everyday: emails to answer, queries to answer and conversations with many of the GA's staff at Solly Street - the HQ in Sheffield. I've had messages and some lovely messages via Twitter DMs, email, Facebook, WhatsApp and various other means.
The first week involved a field trip with Year 4 students to the Norfolk coast - a great day and a reminder of the value of fieldwork. 2022 will see our planned National Fieldwork Week which I am involved in. Look out for more on this in the GA News for Autumn 2021.
There was also the hosting of a one hour session on COP26 with a range of guest speakers - see earlier on LivingGeography for all the links to the presentations. Thanks to all those who presented, including former GA colleague Paula Owens who closed the event.
The second week started with the release of the results of the moderation of applications for a number of funding opportunities that the GA offers. Some of these are for members of our volunteer groups, others are for everyone.
There have been discussions and emails and Zooms around a number of projects and areas:
- the GA's Governance Working Group and smaller groups
- the Geographers' Gaze project to open up the archives a little, with former President Peter Fox involved
- a publication I'm working on for release in 2022 which has been much changed from the original format and now requires a little reworking
- items for GA journals now and in future issues - my Webwatch column for January 2022 is already underway, for example along with a piece for Primary Geography
- National Fieldwork Week planning and thinking
In the third week, focus moved to Conference Planning, and Conference 2022. This is a huge undertaking and there were lengthy meetings with the whole Planning Board to look at the sessions which had been submitted - well over 100 - along with those who I had personally invited. It was the first look at the overall possible format, and some planning ahead for the hybrid conference. Isabel and Becky are pulling things together for another chat in a week's time.
I'm really looking forward to letting people know some of the exciting people we have presenting at the event.
I also completed a presentation slide deck for an education conference in Turkey at which I am an invited speaker, so that it could be sent for translating ahead of the event - the theme is 'Everyday Geographies' and I'm also mentioning my book 'Why Study Geography?' which has been reviewed in RIGEO recently and also elsewhere. I also continued to work on my slide deck for the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers' Conference next month on the theme of 'rewilding'.
We traditionally exchange fraternal greetings at our respective conferences and I've been attending regularly since 2004.
Alongside that I also planned a 3 days ERASMUS+ meeting to take place at my school and worked on some of the resources that are required for it. This will be a chance to welcome international colleagues for the first time in over two years. We had Zoom meetings for the 2 projects. Plenty about those on LivingGeography.
There was also a meeting of the GA's Education Group. This is the main group that supports the Governing Body and staff at HQ with key thinking. It is chaired by the President and this involved rather a lot of preparation and reading and knowledge of the ByLaws and other aspects of the GA's operation. I know almost every member having visited their groups or worked with them in some way.
The final week included further discussions over conference and funding, and follow ups from the EG meeting. There was also a chat with Olwen Lintern-Smyth: Chair of the GA's Trustees.
I ended today by submitting an exciting proposal form for an international conference in 2022, connected with an important GA initiative that is currently underway.
Preparations are also being made for our next meeting of the GA's Governing Body. This will occupy some time in tomorrow's meeting, which I shall tell you all about at the end of October when I share my month 2 update. The full list of the Governing Body is in GA Magazine.
I'll also start the 2nd month by hosting and presenting at an eConference for Early Career Teachers all day on Saturday, and re-recording a bit of audio for my involvement in a well known Geography podcast to be released next month.
If you think that the Presidential for 2023-4 might be you, check out the opportunity here and in the latest GA News. Also feel free to get in touch - I've had a few conversations in that area too.
Updated post. Sad news at the end of last week from colleagues who have organised the Charney Conference over the years of the passing of Ma...
