The ultimate GA souvenir

If anyone wants the ultimate Geographical Association souvenir, one has come up for sale...

This blog has provided details of all the previous homes of the GA.... from Aberystwyth, to Manchester to Sheffield and others...

The second picture shows the stacks I delved into for days to help produce this blog, and the third shows the mysterious lower floor which few have explored...

It will be interesting to see where the Association moves next. Interesting times, and a good decision given the nature of the GA's current work and education generally.

Carole Porter

If you have received a parcel from the Geographical Association's shop in the last decade or more, there's a fair chance that it was packaged and processed by Carole Porter. 

Carole worked at Solly Street for over 25 years as Sales Administrator having joined in 1996. If you have ever attended the GA Conference, you have probably met Carole as she worked on the GA's stand. If you've ever rung the GA HQ you may well have spoken to Carole too. I was very happy to have Carole as a colleague when I worked there.

Carole retired at Christmas 2023, and I wish her a very happy retirement.

Alan Kinder - Chief Executive

Alan Kinder was appointed as the Chief Executive of the GA in 2012, taking office in September of that year. I'd known Alan since 2005 ish when we first started working on the books which were the original editions in the KS3 Teacher Toolkit - others have been added to the series since.

Alan also served on, and was co-chair of Secondary Phase Committee for a while when I also served on the committee.

Here's the announcement of Alan's appointment as David Lambert's replacement as Chief Executive on the GA website back in 2012, thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Alan had a varied career before becoming the Chief Executive, involving himself in many aspects of the subject, and the different groups the GA engages with.

There is a brief biography on the GA website.

Alan has had a wide variety of roles within geographical education: geography teacher, school and curriculum leader, field studies officer, local authority adviser, PGCE tutor and educational consultant. 

His work has taken him from the south coast of England to South Yorkshire and from continental Europe to South-East Asia, giving him the opportunity to work with hundreds of schools from across the UK and further afield. 

Alan has written and contributed to a large body of professional and curriculum materials: books, CPD courses, newspaper and journal articles and website materials on behalf of organisations including the Geographical Association, Oxford University Press, Routledge, the Prince’s Teaching Institute, Times Educational Supplement, RGS-IBG and many others. He is, with John Widdowson, the series co-editor of the GA's award-winning Key Stage 3 Geography Teacher's Toolkit.

Alan has played a key role in advising government on curriculum matters over many years and has had a significant influence on the content and structure of the national curriculum for geography. He was a member of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) panel which advised on English national curriculum reforms in 2008 and reformed A levels that same year. 

Alan was also a national advisor for the implementation of the 2008 Key Stage 3 curriculum in schools. In 2012 he joined the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) subject expert group to advise the Government on the 2014 National Curriculum and GCSE subject criteria for geography from 2016; he was a member of the Geography Expert Subject Advisory Group (GESAG) for the implementation of the 2014 national curriculum and a member of the A Level Content Advisory Board (ALCAB) geography panel, responsible for advising the DfE on A level geography content criteria from 2016. 

Alan has advised the QCDA on national assessment initiatives and Ofqual, the qualification regulator, on specification regulation.

He currently sits on the Council for British Geography (COBRIG), is a Director of the Council for Subject Associations (CfSA), a virtual editorial board member and regular contributor to the SecEd educational newspaper and a corresponding member of the International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE) UK sub-committee. 

In 2017 he joined the University Of Sheffield Department of Geography’s advisory board.

As a long-standing member of the Geographical Association, Alan served on the GA's Secondary Phase Committee between 1998 and 2008 (Co-Chair 2005-8), chaired its Education Committee from 2009-12 and served as a member of the GA Governing Body from 2009-12. 

Alan's role is tremendously varied and challenging and I have hugely valued his support for my own Presidential journey, and his thoughtful and measured approach to all meetings. The final year has been particularly demanding on Alan and all the staff at GA HQ. Alan will hopefully not mind me mentioning that he has a few more grey hairs in his beard... as do I, but have come through it remarkably well and we are in a good place going forward.

Alan has contributed numerous articles to GA publications over the years, as well as chapters in the Secondary Handbook. He co-writes a Policy Matters column in the GA magazine each issue, along with the President.

I have learned a great deal working with Alan during my time as Junior Vice and Vice President, and look forward to working with him and the team at Solly Street over the next two years.

Image: Bryan Ledgard - Alan K with John Lyon at the Association at Work day.

1997: Solly Street

SOLLY STREET, SHEFFIELD: 1997 - present

In 1997, the GA moved to 160 Solly Street, a building with the office and warehouse space needed for the GA’s publishing activities. Initially the building was rented from a private landlord. In 2010 the GA purchased the property, confirming the GA’s commitment to Sheffield, and there was an event to mark this official opening.

At one stage there were plans to update the frontage of the building which were drawn up and I remember seeing. I wonder where they ended up...

The building doesn't have quite the same gravitas as some of other associations' HQ, but it serves its purpose well, and is fairly centrally located within the UK (as far as anywhere can be) and I always enjoy turning up there for the day.

This image was from the opening, taken by Bryan Ledgard and features Rex Walford talking to David Blunkett.

Image: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

There used to be a cracking view up towards the Peak District.

The move to Solly Street #1

I've previously blogged about the GA's move from 343 Fulwood Road to Solly Street in 1996-7

Fulwood Road was the GA's HQ from the mid 1960s to the late 1990s.

Frances Soar, Chief Adminstrator of the GA for many years got me started on some of her memories of this time. She was involved in assisting with the move, and some additional complications from the time, which I have blogged about previously.

The old Roman Catholic area of St Vincent's is certainly worth further study - an excellent book about it was published by the Church when they moved up to Crookes: it's available on line The Sheffield Indexers - History of St Vincents written by Ted Cummings.

Frances is the first of several people who will share their memories. It is a pity the memories of some of the other moves of the GA are not so easy to collect.

Frances told me:

At the back of Solly Street when we first moved in, before the block of flats just above us on Solly St. was built, there were still apple trees from the time when the area had old housing, and I once met a lady who remembered visiting her grandparents in a house there when she was small. Some of the trees were still there in my time, by the access drive to the back yard.

343 Fulwood Road was a lovely old house, but totally impractical for housing the publications business that had become such an important part of the GA's service. Deliveries of new publications were by then arriving shrink wrapped on pallets in huge delivery vehicles that couldn't get down the narrow, bendy, drive. 

We had to unload boxes from pallets on big lorries parked on the main road, and cart the heavy boxes down to the house one by one, sometimes reversing my poor little Austin Metro up the drive and back down again with a few boxes in the boot each time, all under the impatient gaze of the lorry driver who was anxious to get to his next drop. 

Once inside, we had to cart the boxes up steep steps to the first floor, where they filled the spaces around and under our desks until sold, or were hauled up to the attic where we nervously stacked them as close to the walls as possible, hoping that the weight wouldn't bring down the ceiling.

Eventually we were forced to move most of our stock to the premises of a local storage company. Unfortunately, they moved our stock to a less secure location without telling us, and a fire there destroyed the lot. 

Lack of storage space also meant that each quarter we had to hope that all the deliveries of journals and their inserts would arrive at exactly the same time, on the same morning and at the same place (a local church hall) so that we could prepare everything for mailing, helped by a small army of volunteers. I lost count of the times we had to postpone the whole exercise because one journal had been delayed for some reason.

It was clear that we needed either to 'outsource' everything, or find a proper warehouse and packing space, as well as offices for the GA staff and meeting rooms for the GA committees, ideally within easy reach of the railway station and with good vehicle access for deliveries.

The problem was finding suitable alternative premises. 

After careful consideration, the GA decided to stay in Sheffield, so we started looking locally, discovering all too soon that whilst it was fairly easy to find a suitable warehouse with a small office, or suitable offices with a tiny storage area, finding the two combined was a real challenge. With the help of former GA President Professor Stan Gregory, who lived in Sheffield and who volunteered to take part in the search, we looked at various possible places in and around Sheffield, eventually drawing up a shortlist for further consideration. 

On a hot June Saturday in 1996 my Metro was pressed into service once again to take several Officers including I think Ashley Kent and Neil Simmonds to look at a few possible buildings. At some point I pulled off the road close to the town centre for us to 'take stock' before the visitors had to catch their trains home, which was when Ashley (I think) spotted a 'to let' board on a nearby building. Peering at what we could see of the empty premises we realised it was worth further investigation. 

A little bit of serendipity then in the choice of location.

Solly Street is located in an area called 'St. Vincent's', once the heart of Sheffield's Catholic community, which had developed into a centre of old Sheffield industries such as toolmakers and knife manufacturers. 

By the 1990s, further changes were happening, as manufacturers with viable businesses began to move to more suitable premises elsewhere, and others, sadly, disappeared altogether. Many of the old church buildings along Solly Street were becoming run down, St Vincent's Church itself having been empty for some years. 

I occasionally used the parking business which opened up in the old church yard as an overflow option when the spaces outside Solly Street were full, or were needed for visitors.

Our building had been built by a stainless steel architectural fabricator for his own business - hence the smart stainless stair rail and front door we inherited. 

This I did not know!

After he retired it had been let by his widow and daughters to various companies. 

As our GA geographers astutely spotted, this was a good time to take up a lease there, as the area had huge but as yet unrealised potential for upgrading. This is of course what has happened, with old factories and patches of wasteland replaced by modern apartment blocks, and the former church and its ancillary buildings improved for other uses. I remember watching foxes in the waste ground opposite the GA.

Whilst preparing the staff for the move, Frances timed how long it took to walk up to the city centre and what sort of walk it would be. Staff were going to miss the shops, bank and other services at Broomhill so it was helpful to know they could easily get to and from the city centre. 

Coincidentally, two former members of the GA's staff at Solly Street now run a business in Broomhill called Ginger. More on Lucy Oxley and Anne Greaves' involvement with the GA as we get nearer to the present day.

The Trustees agreed to take the Solly Street lease a quarter before the Fulwood Road lease expired, so we were able to prepare the old premises for our departure and the new premises for our arrival without disrupting services to members. It was quite moving to say goodbye to a building that had been such an important part of the GA's history, with its impressive fireplaces and other original features no longer boxed in or covered up, looking much more like the proud private house it once was, ready for new occupants.

An early task at Solly Street was to persuade the authorities to give the building, then called 'Greco House', a proper address with a street number - a surprisingly complex exercise. 

The GA did contemplate inventing another name for the building, but characteristically chose to be practical rather than pretentious.

Further memories of the move to Solly Street to come...

1953: Fulwood Road Library

From W G V Balchin's Centenary volume

1965: Moving to Fulwood Road

Through the 1950s. the GA's premises at  Duke Street Library in Sheffield were getting overcrowed. A donation of oak shelving from the University helped matters in 1959, but the City Fathers, who had granted the GA free accommodation decided that the permises were needed, so the GA had to look for a new home.

In 1959's Annual Report this was explained.

Balchin describes the 1960s as 'an anxious time', as several early options were rejected.

Their tenancy of the library was due to end in September 1964, and notice was served a year earlier. By late 1963, Alice Garnett had been able to secure some assistance from Sheffield University, who had bought land for building student accommodation which included a sizeable Victorian House at 343 Fulwood Road, Sheffield.

This was adopted as the postal address for the GA from September 1964.



Balchin says that the formal opening of the new HQ was on the 11th December 1965, by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, followed by lunch.

Alice Garnett talked about the impending move in her reflections in 1964 and reported on it in 1965.


After 14 years at the Duke Street Library they had a short move.
It describes the accommodation as having ground-floor accommodation for the library and editorial needs, and first floor accommodation for clerical and administrative work, along with meetings rooms, branch visits and committee meetings.

Here's a floor plan from an estate agent's booklet when it was sold


New staff were also taken on it seems.


Further HQ staff of the time were mentioned in a report from 1966.


References

GARNETT, ALICE. “The Geographical Association: ANNUAL REPORT 1958.” Geography, vol. 44, no. 1, 1959, pp. 54–62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564237
Image taken from Balchin's Centenary, photo is copyright the GA Archives

“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 3, 1964, pp. 346–348. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566391. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020.

1961: Changes at HQ

By 1961, there were some important changes taking place at the GA's HQ. There are references here to some important additional people.

The Executive Committee decided that the time has come when we must have a second graduate member of staff at headquarters, and we are glad to report that we have been fortunate in securing the services of Miss A. M. White, a Cambridge University geography graduate, to take over some of the administrative and secretarial work. Miss Oughton remains as head of our office and staff management. 

Mrs. Felkin, the Senior Clerk, well known to many members personally, continues to give invaluable service particularly in matters concerned with our book-keeping and membership records - both most important! - and the service of water and contour pulls of O.S. maps; she is assisted by two junior clerks, and the other member of staff is the library assistant. 

 This staff, double in number what it was a decade ago, combines to give us at headquarters a very hard-working and loyal team and it is a great pleasure to feel able to report to this Annual Meeting, and for the first time, that at last we have been able, as employers, to reach the standards expected for equivalent work in the existing national conditions. 

All of the staff are now on appropriate, if in some cases modest, salary scales, with appropriate contributory pension and insurance schemes and other facilities, and, within the limitations of our present accommodation, they now have adequately furnished working space and essential clerical and labour- saving office equipment. 

This state of affairs, after a decade of financial struggle, and exacerbated by the spiral of inflation, can at last be a matter of pride, and with the increased efficiency that we hope it brings.

Source:
Garnett, Alice. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 47, no. 1, 1962, pp. 99–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565641

GA Virtual Conference 2020 - an update

As you will be aware the 2020 GA Conference has had to be cancelled for obvious reasons. Harriet Brookes, Becky Kitchen, Gill Miller and the rest of the conference planning team have worked wonders to put together a virtual conference using Adobe Connect which will take on the same dates as the original would have been taking place. Check your e-mails from a message from Harriet Brookes.

Whilst the Conference is an important time for the geography education community, the current government restrictions around movement mean that we are unable to hold the Conference in it's original form at the present time. Instead we are pleased to launch GA eConference 2020 which will be an online offering of some of the programmed sessions over three days; Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 April. The keynote sessions, to include the public lecture, presidential lecture and keynote, will be freely and publicly available live on Thursday 16 April. Delegates to GA eConference 2020 will then have a choice of one of four pathways on Friday 17 April – Primary, GCSE, A level or Beginning Teachers – and one of four pathways on Saturday 18 April – Geography for sustainability, Real world enquiry, Geography curriculum planning or Case studies of a changing world. The cost of the online Conference programme is £60. Full programme details will be available shortly on Sched and on the GA website.

Next steps For delegates who paid for their Conference place, there are five options for you to choose from: I would like to cancel my booking and receive a full refund if applicable.  I would like to donate my delegate fee to the GA. No refund will be issued. I would like to join the eConference and donate the rest of my delegate fee to the GA. If you select this option, you will be donating the remainder of your delegate fee to the GA and no refund will be issued. I would like to join the eConference and receive a partial refund. If you select this option, you will receive a partial refund equivalent to the amount previously paid to us minus the £60 online Conference fee. I would like to transfer my place to next year’s Conference. Your place will be transferred to the GA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2021 at the University of Surrey, 8-10 April 2021 at no extra cost. No refund will be issued. If you booked as a speaker, you can either choose to join the eConference free of charge as a speaker or not.

John Widdowson and I were due to lead a fieldtrip in Guildford, based around the 2nd edition of our Fieldwork through Enquiry book.

The publication of the book has been delayed because of printing issues, so will not be available as planned.

I am working out some sort of virtual fieldtrip which I will share when it is complete, and perhaps see you in Guildford in 2021 instead for the actual event...

1953: GA HQ and Library

Image from Balchin's Centenary of the GA, taken in old HQ 

I'd be delighted to see any images of the GA conferences, events, Presidents or other aspects of the work of the Association. There seem to be decades where few images exist other than portraits of people. I have some images coming up once we get closer to the President day, but not many others.

1947: Moving to Sheffield

PARK LIBRARY, SHEFFIELD: 1947 - 64 

Post-war developments forced the GA to relinquish its accommodation in Manchester as the area was redeveloped.
Dr. Alice Garnett (the Honorary Secretary at the time) and Professor David Linton (Honorary Editor) were both based in Sheffield, so a move there was agreed, and made possible by the Sheffield City Librarian’s generous offer of free office and library space at Park Library, Duke Street.

This is another on the list of places to visit during my time as President.

In October 1950, the GA’s new offices were officially opened.


Image: Google Earth - copyright is held by the various image providers, and image used under Fair Use.

The peripatetic Association

Updated November 2020

The Geographical Association has used various premises during its history. It has travelled from place to place, as all good geographers do of course.
I hope to visit as many of them as possible during my Presidential year (and around that time): some of them are familiar to me already of course, and I have visited them.

The Association was formed in the Common Room of Christchurch College, Oxford.

The journals: 'The Geographical Journal' and 'Geography' list a great many venues hosting the AGMs in the early years of the Association including

1903: College of Preceptors, Bloomsbury Square, London
1912: The Physiological Lecture Theatre of University College, London

The London School of Economics was a regular location for the GA Conference for many years, when it was held over the New Year period.
There were the years in Aberystwyth and Manchester, under H J Fleure.

In 1997, there was the move to Solly Street, following an earlier residency at Fulwood Road (and Park Road Library before that)
When I first visited, there was a view up the valley towards the Peak District, but over the years this has been closed off by the construction of student accommodation.
This is the present home of the Association.

For three years, this was my place of work too, where I was fortunate to work as the Secondary Curriculum Leader of the GA. I still visit occasionally for meetings, and to work on projects.
I will be visiting more regularly for the next few years for various meetings.

Image: Alan Parkinson

1930: Moving to Manchester

Updated October 2025

MANCHESTER: 1930 - 1946

In 1930, Professor H J Fleure took up the newly-established Chair of Geography at the University of Manchester and the GA moved with him. 

This meant finding a new place for the 4000 volumes that were now in the Association's Library, along with the Assistant Secretary who ran it and dealt with correspondence.



The Chief Education Officer in Manchester, Spurley Hey generously gave the GA free office and library accommodation in the Manchester High School of Commerce, which was gratefully accepted. Miss R M Fleming wanted to stay in Aberystwyth, and was replaced by Miss M. E. Owen. She proved herself to be just as efficient and skilful in her work.

When this became unavailable, temporary accommodation was provided at 103 Princess Street, Manchester, close to where the GA currently has its conference every three years or so.

This was a challenging time for the Association, with economic recession, and less demand for specialist teachers.
Despite that, the library's new location and premises allowed it to become a reference library, and use of it increased steadily.

T. C. Warrington took over as Honorary Librarian after stepping down as Headteacher of Leek Grammar School.