1921: Halford Mackinder

I've been doing some reading to prepare for some work in my new role as VP: Education of the Royal Geographical Society.

I came across a speech by Halford MacKinder, delivered in the famous Map Room in 1921.

I was intrigued at the description of the GA as 'the dutiful daughter' of the RGS, asking for 'maternal help'.

This came at a time when the discipline was strong in universities, but not so much in schools.

This led to a report by John Scott Keltie.

I was interested that MacKinder was caned at school for drawing maps.... see below...

"About this time a step had been taken the significance of which was not at first recognized. Mr. Dickinson of Rugby had been using lantern slides in his classroom, and wanted to organize a system of exchanging slides between school and school. 

The Royal Geographical Society referred him to me, and at my invitation the first meeting of the Geographical Association was held at Christ Church, Oxford. Herbertson soon became Secretary of the Association, which under his auspices flourished, and began to publish a journal, the Geographical Teacher."

Source: Mackinder, Halford. “Geography as a Pivotal Subject in Education.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 57, no. 5, 1921, pp. 376–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1780845. Accessed 11 July 2024.

The Geographer's Craft (1967) - Percy Maude Roxby

While researching something on the history of the RGS, I came across a book called 'The Geographer's Craft' by Emeritus Professor T.W. Freeman (of Manchester University) published in 1967.

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.

According to Roxby, I live in an area he called High Norfolk (some of this is now called Breckland)

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.

COVIC and Alfred Hugh Fisher

COVIC has been mentioned before on the blog.

It is the Colonial Office Visual Instruction Committee, and GA Presidents were involved in its work at the time.

This article in the Cambridge University Special Collections blog describes some work carried out at the start of the 20th century.

It was written by Sabrina Meneghini.

It describes a journey made around the British Empire by an artist called Alfred Hugh Fisher.

He was hired to take photographs and make paintings in order to create a visual record of the people, landscapes and geography of the vast empire. From these images COVIC produced a series of illustrated lectures and textbooks which were to be presented as geography lessons to schoolchildren.

The 6 books that resulted are held in the library.
The Indian volume was written by Halford MacKinder... who was not a native of India...

Image source: https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=16032

MacKinder was appointed for the supervision of the whole project, including the preparation of the textbooks. In 1910 he entered Parliament and consequently had less time to commit to COVIC, therefore the succeeding textbooks were authored by the economist Arthur John Sargent.

The texts inside each of the books are rich in historical and geographical descriptions. The front covers, with the illustrations and the titles showing either the natural products, the animals or the distinctive landscapes of the countries, provide information of the inside arousing readers’ curiosity.

The textbooks were accompanied by sets of lantern slides (no less than 350 per book) and the complete lists can be found at the end of each book.

A selection of the images are available on another blog post by the same author.

In 1902 the Colonial Office was charged with creating a visual record of the British Empire. The COVIC produced sets of lantern slides which were to be presented as a series of geography lessons to school children. The project’s cultural exchange aims were twofold: British schools would receive images of the colonies, while colonial school children would receive and see slides from the Mother Country. In 1907 the Committee hired Alfred Hugh Fisher, an artist and newspaper illustrator, for a duration of three years. He was given the responsibility of creating a visual description of Britain’s overseas territories.

This was quite a commission.

The first two posts were from 2018, but there is a follow up from April 2023 by Sabrina, updating on her PhD research.

Sabrina recently completed her PhD at DeMontfort University, entitled Classroom Photographic Journeys: Alfred Hugh Fisher and the British Empire’s Development of Colonial-era Visual Education, which made heavy use of the Library’s Royal Commonwealth Society photographic collections.

Congratulations!

The new post describes the journey in more detail and includes some of Fisher's photographs and paintings.

There are also diary and letter images.

His journey started in October 1907 in South Asia where he visited India (at the time of Fisher’s journey the term India included the areas in the Indian subcontinent administrated by the United Kingdom and ruled by the British Raj. It extended over present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka), Burma [present Myanmar], Aden, Somaliland, and Cyprus. From July 1908 to May 1909, he travelled to Canada, Newfoundland, Weihaiwei, Hong Kong, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore. In his last journey, from October 1909 to August 1910, he sailed from Gibraltar and Malta to Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Fiji. COVIC purchased images from places he was not able to visit such as the West Indies [Caribbean], and South Africa. Some were acquired from official bodies, others from amateur photographers.

Fisher was the first and only photographer employed by COVIC.

Sabrina says that:
British geographer Halford John Mackinder, attempted to influence how Fisher’s work would shape COVIC’s with instructions on how and what to photograph. Fisher did not always follow these instructions and his own vision of the Empire can be seen through his artistic works.

In the section on India.

The type of images requested by Mackinder to Fisher in India had to show the stability and order of the colonial society. It was important to illustrate to British pupils the Empire’s most valuable possessions and the achievements accomplished by British in the Indian subcontinent. Fisher documented the various forms of cults in India, ancient buildings, princes and rulers from different Indian states, railways, engineering infrastructures, and scenes depicting the development of the colonial economy to demonstrate the good functioning of the Empire and the subservience of its subjects.

The letters in this Yale archive would make interesting reading for sure.

Fisher sent his documents in the hope that his biography would be written.

Some of the material can be accessed in digital form by following links from the main page above. Fascinating stuff.

Source of text:

https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=24905

This is a fascinating story and I'll try and track down the PhD in full as it sounds like it will be well worth finding out more...

Fanny Copeland and the Le Play Society

I didn't know anything about Fanny Copeland until I came across this article while looking for something on the work of Laurence Dudley Stamp.

Special thanks to Richard Clarke for his work on this research.

Born in Ireland, raised in Scotland, she made her life as an adopted Slovene, having lived in a number of European countries.

In this capacity, she welcomed a field trip from members of the Le Play Society, which I have mentioned several times on the blog.

This section talks about Copeland's involvement:

She had invited George Ingle Finch, to lecture.

Finch was also an activist within the London Le Play House Organisation (LPHO).  

The LPHO was a key organisation in the development of inter-war British geography.  

It had been established in 1920 by a curious mix of geographers, sociologists and educationalists to take forward ‘regional studies’ using an interdisciplinary analytical framework based on the trilogy of ‘place’ (the natural environment, physical and biological), ‘work’ (the economy, and daily life of its people) and ‘folk’ (their community and social organisation).  

This approach was itself derived from the work of the 19th century French sociologist Frederick Le Play (who emphasised ‘family’ as the basic unit of society, rather than ‘folk’).  

The LPHO provided a home for several bodies, including student groups and a ‘foreign fieldwork committee’ whose emphasis on ‘human ecology’ during the late 1920s became increasingly at variance from that of the Sociological Society (another body within the LPHO which was championing the ‘professional’ disciplinary practice of academic sociology).  

The two bodies split in 1931, with the Sociological Society recasting itself as a professional institute - the Institute of Sociology - and the foreign fieldwork committee becoming the nucleus of a separate organisation, the Le Play Society (LPS), under its first President, Patrick Geddes.  Geddes died in 1932, shortly after the formation of the LPS and was succeeded as its President by Halford Mackinder. 

I'd been unaware of this earlier incarnation of the Le Play Society, or the close link with the IBG. I need to go back to some of my earlier sources perhaps.

The LPS (a precursor of the Institute of British Geographers) became a major influence on the development of geographical fieldwork between the two World Wars.  Its first ‘foreign study’ (in August 1932) led by Dudley Stamp was of Solčavsko, a then ‘remote’ Alpine valley system on the Slovene - Austrian border.

It resulted in some outputs:

Dudley Stamp (1933) 'Slovene Studies'

This review of the book mentions two other former GA Presidents:

"Halford Mackinder in his Foreword to Slovene Studies described it as ’an honestly made brick for the palace we are rearing.’ (in Stamp 1933)  The LPS subsequently held up the 1932 visit as a model of how regional studies should be carried out.  The Society's own (1935) guide to regional fieldwork describes it as 'An excellent example of regional survey by a Le Play Society group doing field work as a summer vacation course abroad'. (Barnard 1935: 114, 1948)  Thirty years later (after the LPS had been wound up) the visit was described by Beaver (1962: 236) as 'one of the best examples' of the LPS’s work.  Beaver did much within the Joint School of Geography at King’s College and LSE during the 1930s to promote fieldwork and his own interest in the Balkans were fostered by his leadership of several LPS ‘expeditions’ (Phillips and Turton 1975)."

At this point the British Association and Section E appear - something else which has appeared quite a few times on the blog.

And this is followed by two more references to former GA Presidents: Sir John Russell (President in 1960) and K C Edwards.

"In 1947, well before the Society’s eventual closure, its ‘student group’ had become a separate body (Turnock 1991), recasting itself as the ’Geographical Field Group’ (GFG) with K C Edwards, by now Head of Nottingham University’s Geography Department as its President.  The GFG as a body of ‘professional geographers’ regarded the LPS as elderly amateurs and too ‘sociological’; the emphasis on civics and the Le Play method was dropped (Merchant 2000)"

I now need to find out more about the Geographical Field Group (GFG).

References can be found in the bibliography of the article below.

Copeland lived a long life, full of mountains and connections, and she was described as a "buzzing fly" (hopefully in a positive way).

Clarke says of her:

"In Copeland’s own work one can find elements of the idealism of Patrick Geddes, the mysticism of Vaughan Cornish (especially in her writing on mountains) and the pragmatism of Dudley Stamp."

Hilda Ormsby crops up here too - I love all the connections and interconnections here. There is so much that could be done with this era and the work of GA Presidents...

Source:

Clarke, Richard (2011) "Fanny Copeland and the geographical imagination. Scottish Geographical Journal 127(3) ,pp.163-192

https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/8156/1/ClarkeAnteric_2011_FannyCopelandGeogImag_SGJ_Pre-Pub.pdf

Stamp, L. Dudley, ed. 1933. Slovene Studies: Being Studies Carried Out by Members of the Le Play Society in the Alpine Valleys of Slovenia (Yugoslavia). London: Le Play Society 

Edwards, K.C. 1932. Anglezi studirajo Slovenijo. Planinski vestnik, no. 10: 193-198

Beaver, Stanley H. 1962. The Le Play Society and Fieldwork. Geography 47: 225-240

A quote I got from here as well:

‘Geographical knowledge needs to be understood as something that is constituted through a range of embodied practices (such as travelling, seeing and recording).  

The ‘field’ is not some self-evident place, something ‘out there’ to be ‘discovered’ in an unproblematic sense, it is produced in the ideas and the recorded or remembered movements of geographical actors, created through their discourse and shared through the networks of academic (and amateur) exchange.’ 

(Stoddart and Adams, 2004)   

Stoddart, David R and William M Adams. 2004. Fieldwork and Unity in Geography. In Unifying geography: common heritage, shared future, ed. John A Matthews and David T Herbert, London: Routledge. 

The development of Geography

Quite a few GA Presidents are mentioned in this piece by Ivor Goodson, on how geography gained its status as a discipline.

It references several key times in geography's development, including the Madingley lecturers and the emergence of the 'new geography'

Source:

Goodson, Ivor. “Becoming an Academic Subject: Patterns of Explanation and Evolution.” British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 2, no. 2, 1981, pp. 163–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1393016. 

RGS 125th Anniversary Dinner - 1955

There was a strong representation of former GA Presidents at this event, held at the Dorchester Hotel - very posh.

In the speech that followed, the GA gets a mention, alongside the previous explorations and expeditions.

There is also a mention for recent Medallists, including Sir John Russell (another former GA President)

“The 125th Anniversary Dinner.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 121, no. 3, 1955, pp. 392–404. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1790929. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

Cross-channel Geographers

A find while researching Stanley Henry Beaver.

It explores collaboration across the channel.

This developed from the work of Paul Vidal de la Blanche.

He conceived the idea of genre de vie, which is the belief that the lifestyle of a particular region reflects the economic, social, ideological and psychological identities imprinted on the landscape.

The influence of Halford Mackinder and Andrew John Herbertson at Oxford was highly important in the training of teachers and university lecturers. The ‘new geography’ of Vidal and his disciples became widely known in Britain and served as a model for the first half of the century since French was far more readily accessible to a British audience than the German geographical classics.

Former GA Presidents who are referenced include:

H. J. Fleure - a French speaker and early visitor

Emrys Bowen

Stanley Henry Beaver

Percy Roxby

John Linton Myres

Bill Mead

Sidney Wooldridge

David Leslie Linton

There is also reference to Monkhouse and Darby.

There is also reference to the work of Hilda Ormsby - the French expert at the LSE

Source: https://journals.openedition.org/cybergeo/2966

Image source: Wikimedia - CC licensed

GA and Internationalism

From a PhD thesis, and discovered while searching for information on Richard Arman Gregory. It explores the work of the British Association Sections and Nunn's report on school geography in 1919, and the need to promote 'global citizenship' and internationalism / the League of Nations.

The TES in 1920

In order, then, to take a share in the general citizenship of the world thus forced upon humanity it is essential that a knowledge of the factors underlying life and its problems the wide world over should form a part, and an important part, of a sound education.

At this point, yet another former GA President appears: Cyril Norwood - early on it what was to become another illustrious career.

There is a great deal to unpick here. I am sure other PhD theses may have explored this period.

Source: PhD Thesis - University of Leeds - 1978 - Peter Michael Digby Collins

https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4621/1/uk_bl_ethos_574464.pdf

The British Association referred to here is the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences which has been around since 1831.

It has digital archives which I may well dig into if time and circumstances permit. Apparently I can have a 30 day free trial to delve into the papers that it contains as part of the Wiley Digital Archives service.

In 2009, BAAS became the British Science Association (BSA). The new association has expanded on the original mission of putting science at the center of society, culture and education, and is focused on increasing the number, range and diversity of people actively engaged with scientific studies, activities and developments.

British Association (BAAS) Section E (and L)

From a PhD thesis, and discovered while searching for information on Richard Arman Gregory. It has plenty about him here, as well as references to John Linton Myres, Halford MacKinder and others as part of his work with the British Association for Advancement of Sciences - founded in 1831.

Section E was Geography.

Chapter XII is particularly relevant for Geography, although there are over 150 references to the term.

It repeats something I've read elsewhere:

The Royal Geographical Society (founded in 1830), which together with the British Association had been instrumental in establishing geography at the ancient universities, set up the Geographical Association in 1893 to represent secondary school geography teachers. 

Which is not the case of course...

It describes the GA as acting as a "pressure group" for school geography.

Thec hairman of the Manchester branch of the Geographical Association, T. W. F. Parkinson was elected Secretary of the new Manchester Geographical Society (still in existence today)

In a conference in 1919, Parkinson delivered a speech where he emphasised Geography's links with Empire - not everyone agreed that focussing on this was a good idea:

C. B Fawcett said that geography's sphere of interest was the whole world, not the Empire.

The Prince of Wales also appears speaking up for Geography.

Another pair of former GA Presidents get a mention here: Halford MacKinder and Sir John Russell.

H.J. Fleure then pops up!

Various committees and Sections discussed and passed around the idea of a proper report into school geography. It ended up in the hands of T Percy Nunn.

He chaired a committee with the following members:

Respectively W.H. Barker, L. Brooks, H.J.Fleure, O.J.R. Howarth, H.J. Mackinder, J.L. Myres andJ.F. Unstead; G.H.J. Adlam, D. Berridge, C.E. Browne, Richard Gregory, E. Sharwood Smith, E.R. Thomas and Miss O. Wright.

One woman only.. and Richard Gregory was not listed as a geographer at the time...

Some very familiar names and almost all of them GA Presidents in their time - that seems to have been the route into the Presidency at that time.

Speaking at the end of the First World War

Source: PhD Thesis - University of Leeds - 1978 - Peter Michael Digby Collins

https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4621/1/uk_bl_ethos_574464.pdf

In 2009, BAAS became the British Science Association (BSA). The new association has expanded on the original mission of putting science at the center of society, culture and education, and is focused on increasing the number, range and diversity of people actively engaged with scientific studies, activities and developments.

Other reading:

Charles W. J. Withers, et al. “Geography’s Other Histories? Geography and Science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831-c.1933.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 31, no. 4, 2006, pp. 433–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4639988. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.

A great many former GA Presidents were involved here, and received grants from the BAAS.

See the Grants page in the article above for some examples...

Here's an extract from the table:

For more on the BAAS I referred to a paper by Stanley Henry Beaver (also a former GA President with his own entry on the blog...)

Section E was set up in 1851.

Early meetings are described here:

There was a close link with exploration and travel...

Geographical education then emerged as a new facet of the work of Section E, again thanks to former GA Presidents:

In 1885, Scott Keltie, who had been appointed Inspector of geographical education' by the RGS in the previous year, spoke on 'Geographical education'; he criticized heavily the very unsatisfactory position of the subject, which 'scarcely counts at all as a subject of education', largely owing to overcrowded school curricula and the ignorance of teachers, an ignorance that was hardly surprising in view of the absence of the subject from universities. 

In 1887, the Section Presidential Address, by Col. Sir Charles Warren, was on 'The teaching of geography'. He defined the subject as 'all that knowledge of common things connected with the surface of the earth, including the seas and the atmosphere, which it necessary for every human being to be acquainted with in order that progress in other knowledge may be acquired and acquaintance with the world be made which will fit man for life in any capacity'. 

He stressed the need 'to train the minds of youth in the power of observation', and in regretting the absence of geography from the public schools, emphasized the importance of geographical knowledge to government servants. 

At the same meeting, H. J. Mackinder, a young Oxford University Extension lecturer, was speaking on 'Geography at the universities', and J. J. Cardwell on 'A natural method of teaching geography'. Mackinder was about to take up his appointment as Reader at Oxford; he referred to the necessity to teach physiography, because the schools did not do it; but, he went on, 'physiography is not geography; it lacks the topography, which is the essential element in geography'. 

This paper is packed with former GA Presidents.

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.

1930

A spot of history. I was looking for some more detail on the connection between Sir Patrick Geddes and the GA.

Here's the Council for 1930 - a great many past and future Presidents were Vice Presidents on Council at this time. The meetings must have been quite some event...

I wonder what happened to Miss A Shipperbottom and the other female members of council mentioned here.

Lantern Slides - a new eBook

Happy to announce the publication of this book! #NellekeTeughels @CultHIst_Kul #histed
available in open access https://t.co/ZfpUVkRKyG pic.twitter.com/NPXE4l9t1x

— Kaat Wils (@KaatWils) February 20, 2023

This can be downloaded from the site here.

The book mentions the research of Emily Hayes, who kindly contributed some ideas for my GA Presidents blog on the historical use of lantern slides by the RGS and the GA. The GA was founded to help share lantern slides.

She talks about the use of slides by Halford Mackinder, who remains a significant (if problematic) figure in the history of geographical thought:

One of the three case studies Hayes analyses to demonstrate the gradual engagement of the RGS with the lantern is the famous lecture ‘On the Scope and Methods of Geography’ given by a young Mackinder to the RGS in 1887. The geographer had been a key figure in the acceptance and employment of the lantern projector to promote geographical knowledge. In his presentation, in which images and text were synchronized, Mackinder demonstrated he was ready to fully embrace the technology. The debate on the use of lantern slides in geographical education saw Mackinder as one of the main supporters, who recognized the pedagogical potential of the technology to instruct children.

There is an interesting section which I hadn't read about before on how Halford Mackinder was asked by COVICS to produce some slides and lecture notes which became a series of illustrated books - the pictures being smaller versions of the slides used in the original lectures for the Colonial Office. This would doubtless be of interest to those concerned with de/colonising geography.

I need to spend a little more time reading this.

Source:

Mackinder, Halford J., ‘The Teaching of Geography from an Imperial Point of View, and the Use Which Could and Should be Made of Visual Instruction’, The Geographical Teacher, 6.30 (1911), 79–86.

Mackinder, Halford J., India. Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office(London: George Philip & Son, 1910).

Maddrell, Avril M. C., ‘Empire, Emigration and School Geography: Changing Discourses of Imperial Citizenship, 1880–1925’, Journal of Historical Geography 22.4 (1996), 381.

Are we really Prisoners of Geography?

The piece mentions Sir Halford MacKinder, GA President in 1916.

In a 1904 paper, The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinder gazed at a relief map of the world and posited that history could be seen as a centuries-long struggle between the nomadic peoples of Eurasia’s plains and the seafaring ones of its coasts. Britain and its peers had thrived as oceanic powers, but, now that all viable colonies were claimed, that route was closed and future expansion would involve land conflicts. The vast plain in the “heart-land” of Eurasia, Mackinder felt, would be the centre of the world’s wars.

Definitely a theme worth discussing to this day...

Recent events in Ukraine can be discussed with reference to this.

From the archive: T C Warrington to HRM in 1938

I visited the archive in Solly Street during the summer holidays and made some great discoveries.

I was able to access some letters from the personal collection of Hugh Robert Mill, received between 1893 and 1944. They were given to the GA in 2000 by Arthur Hunt, who received them from L J Jay's widow. 

L J Jay was a former GA librarian.

This letter was sent by T C Warrington to Hugh Robert Mill in 1938. Warrington was President later but at the time was Chair of the Library Committee, and the famous town planner Sir Patrick Abercrombie was President. He was requesting some information about why the RGS got involved with education... I would quite like to have seen the reply.

Warrington to Mill about the GA.pdf from GeoBlogs

It's also interesting to see the header of the paper that is used, which still has Sir Halford Mackinder as the Chairman of Council, and Fleure as Honorary Secretary and Editor. This was a time just before WWII when the connections with the GA's origins were still strong.

It's also interesting to see the mention of 'Local Branches in Educational Centres throughout the Country with Affiliated Associations in N. Ireland, S. Africa, Burma, U.P, India and Ceylon'.

U.P is presumably United Provinces.

I perhaps need to find out more about these Affiliated Associations. There is some 'decolonising' research and work to do here.

R J Unstead

While in the GA Archive I came across the manuscript of an appreciation of the work of A J Herbertson: a legend from the very origins of the GA, handwritten by R J Unstead.

R J Unstead was a connection with the early days of the GA as well, having been a teacher who was influenced by hearing Halford Mackinder speak. He wrote about Herbertson, and that was featured in a 1955 issue of 'Geography'.

Source:

UNSTEAD, J. F. “A. J. Herbertson and His Work.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 4, 1965, pp. 343–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40565958. Accessed 19 Aug. 2022.

Here is the piece as it featured in 'Geography', in a special issue devoted to A J Herbertson.

Here is the manuscript:

He wrote a great many books which were published during the middle part of the 20th Century.

His obituary was published in 'Geography' in 1966, and written by Olive Garnett.

Source

Garnett, Olive. “JOHN FREDERICK UNSTEAD.” Geography, vol. 51, no. 2, 1966, pp. 151–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40566076. Accessed 19 Aug. 2022.

I lack an image of R J Unstead if anyone has any memories or is able to provide one from the 1960s.

Image of the Day - 1901

Source:

GILBERT, E. W. “Andrew John Herbertson 1865-1915: An Appreciation of His Life and Work.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 4, 1965, pp. 313–331. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565956

MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia

MyHeritage has released a free tool which takes an image from a photo and animates it. The main target market is for those researching family trees and genealogy as it 'brings relatives to life' in a spooky sort of way. In fact My Heritage themselves say that some people don't like it. The term 'Deep Nostalgia' is used, which is close to 'deep fake'. They say:

Some people love the Deep Nostalgia™ feature and consider it magical, while others find it creepy and dislike it. Indeed, the results can be controversial and it’s hard to stay indifferent to this technology. We invite you to create videos using this feature and share them on social media to see what your friends and family think. This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring beloved ancestors back to life. Our driver videos don’t include speech in order to prevent abuse of this , such as the creation of “deep fake” videos of living people. Please use this feature on your own historical photos and not on photos featuring living people without their permission.

I tried it on a few former GA Presidents - what do you think? Should I stop?

Here's Percy Maude Roxby

Sir Halford Mackinder

Oxford University Geography Department and women

An interesting lecture on video which features many former GA Presidents and also Fanny Herbertson along the way as it tells the story of the department's changing relationship with women students (and tutors). The Herbertsons established summer schools and there are some useful insights into this time, when a great many graduates were introduced to new ways of thinking and working. Even today, maleness is still a major factor, such as the names of the Chair and prizes.

This event forms part of the University’s celebrations marking 100 years since women were first permitted to take degrees in Oxford. Dr Elizabeth Baigent, Reader in the History of Geography at the University of Oxford and former Research Director of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, uncovers the contribution of women to Oxford’s School of Geography – an institution whose history is generally told in terms of historic male endeavour. By uncovering the lives of women staff and students from the establishment of the School at the end of the nineteenth century, Liz explores the varied contributions of the School’s women and their connections with wider movements such as women’s suffrage – as well as asking why we have until now regarded them as marginal and unimportant.

The early period of the RGS-IBG

The first part of Tariq Jazeel's lecture mentions some overlap with the early days of the RGS-IBG.

Have you watched our Thinking geographically lecture with @rikjaz @AnsonMackay from @UCLgeography? @rikjaz urges a questioning approach — 'historically we want you to ask, in whose image has geography been fashioned and how might we begin to change that?' https://t.co/LgHWPkrLEu

— RGS-IBG Schools (@RGS_IBGschools) December 2, 2020

Can be watched again on Vimeo. The first half is by Professor Tariq Jazeel, who also serves on the GA Governing Body. The second half is by Professor Anson Mackay, whose specialist area is climate change and palaeoclimates. It's aimed at UCL students, but if you listen to the questions that Tariq poses, there is plenty there to consider when one thinks about the emergence of the subject discipline.

Constructing school geographies

It's worth reading this piece by John Morgan, which forms part of an Open University online course.
John talks about the importance of knowing something about the development of the subject.
He references the important work of Halford Mackinder.


While the 'old' geography was concerned with the collection of mere 'useless' information about places, the new geography was about 'training the faculty of sight in a detached pictorialisation of the drama of the world'. 

1969: The death of H J Fleure

H J Fleure was a remarkable man.
He was the librarian of the GA for decades and has his own blog post here on the blog and has been mentioned in so many other posts. He became Honorary Secretary of the GA in 1917, appointed by Halford MacKinder.
He attended GA meetings into his 90s.
In 1969, he passed away, and the final link with the origins of the GA was lost.

The remembrance piece, written by another former President E.G. Bowen, is worth reading to appreciate the extent to which Fleure's work helped define the GA.
It is followed up by a piece from another former President Alice Garnett, who outlines how Fleure joined the GA in 1906.

The piece finishes with some important words for any who follow in Fleure's footsteps and hold an important role within the Association.

Source
Bowen, E. G. “HERBERT JOHN FLEURE.” Geography, vol. 54, no. 4, 1969, pp. 464–469. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567148. Accessed 22 June 2020.