'The Geographer as Scientist'

From my visit to a wonderful second-hand book shop called ‘Peter’s Books’ (probably the best in East Anglia), I now have a 1956 copy of ‘The Geographer as Scientist’ by S.W. Wooldridge. 

He was GA President in 1954 and also President of the IBG and Chair of the Field Studies Council. 

There are some excellent essays, including his own GA Presidential address, with plenty to say about teaching and the rle of the GA, RGS and FSC and how it has changed.

Professor Eric Brown

I'm still interested in adding further details of people and connections with the GA - the blog is not over, although the main phase has been completed in terms of writing biographies of all former Presidents.

Please get in touch if you have things you might want to add.

I came across this obituary of Professor Eric Brown from 2018, who had a number of connections with the GA and the RGS.

An edited version of a remarkable career, with plenty of RGS and IBG related work as well.

Eric Herbert Brown died at Berkhamsted on 5 January 2018 at the age of 95. He taught geography at University College London for almost four decades, inspiring generations of undergraduates and mentoring dozens of research students. His doctoral work, published as The Relief and Drainage of Wales (1960) earned him the Back Award of the Royal Geographical Society and has become a classic work in physical geography. Eric was President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1978 and served as Honorary Secretary of the RGS from 1977 to 1987, and then Vice-President (1988–1989). He edited Geography Yesterday and Tomorrow (1980) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Society. 

The son of Samuel and Ada Brown, Eric was born on 8 December 1922 at Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. His exploration of the surrounding countryside, on foot or on bicycle, awakened his interest in geography, and a game of “brook jumping” introduced him to the meandering of streams. Having excelled in his secondary education at King Edward VII Grammar School in Melton Mowbray, he was accepted to study geography at King's College London. His first academic year was spent as an academic evacuee in Bristol, where he was tutored by Sidney Wooldridge who had a profound influence on his approach to geography and his subsequent career. From 1941 to 1945, Eric was a Royal Air Force pilot, after training at several bases in Britain and Canada. As a member of 517 Squadron, Coastal Command, he was involved in anti-U Boat operations over the Bay of Biscay and collected meteorological data on long patrols over the Atlantic to assist forecasting of weather in Europe. This contributed to the forecast from which General Eisenhower decided to postpone D-Day by 24 hours. 

Based in Pembrokeshire, Eric met a local farmer's daughter named Eileen Reynolds whom he married in 1945. After the war, he resumed studies at the King's College-London School of Economics Joint School of Geography and obtained a first class degree in 1947.

Following Wooldridge's advice, Eric accepted an assistant lectureship at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where Emrys Bowen was professor. With support from geologist Alan Wood, Eric researched the geomorphology of Cardiganshire for his MSc (University of Wales, 1949), and started work on his doctoral project covering Wales (University of London, 1955). He made field observations throughout Wales, usually travelling by motorbike. His investigations impressed Professor Henry Clifford Darby, whom he had met at an IBG conference, and he was invited to join UCL. After advice from Wooldridge, Eric began teaching in London in January 1950. 

Throughout his career, Eric's main teaching responsibilities lay with geomorphology and North America, the latter popular course being shared with Bill Mead. 

Beyond the British Isles, Eric gained field experience in Poland in the early 1960s of periglacial features and the techniques of geomorphological mapping developed there during the 1950s. This led to him making a significant contribution to all of the four meetings (one of only three such “regulars”) between November 1958 and January 1961 that began by proposing a Land Form Survey of Britain, and ended with the agreement to establish the British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG). The minutes of these meetings reveal Eric to have been a strong advocate for the Polish style of geomorphological mapping (of landforms) rather than the morphological mapping (of slope attributes) favoured by some others; as well as for the foundation of the BGRG (together with David Linton and Wooldridge). 

Eric retired in 1988 but retained many links with UCL and especially the Remote Sensing Unit. In 2002 his long and dedicated service to geography was marked by an honorary doctorate from the University of York, where his former student Sir Ron Cooke was vice-chancellor. Eric continued to be an active member of his local community in Berkhamsted, including its branch of the Geographical Association. He attended academic events at the RGS-IBG and meetings of the Geographical Club. 

He deepened his appreciation of rugby football and fine wines. UCL Geography emeriti enjoyed regular “pub lunches” until last year, when Eric would recall wartime experiences as if they were yesterday. A visit, with Bill Mead, to Gerry and Marion Ward in the south of France became an annual fixture. After the death of Eileen in 1984, he lived alone for three decades, moving into a retirement home only for his final months. Professor Eric Brown is survived by his daughters, Jane and Megan, and by his grandchildren in whom he took great pride.

Dudley Stamp's "Geographical Agenda'"

I've been reading around the future of geography and came across a piece by Michael Wise in a collection which was edited by Russell King for the GA back in 1985.

He referred to Dudley Stamp's "Geographical Agenda" which was laid out in his Presidential address when he was President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1957 before they joined up with the RGS.

Available on JSTOR.

R H Kinvig

R H Kinvig is mentioned in a few documents referenced when I was searching for information on Michael Wise. He was connected with the University of Birmingham,. and also other presidents including Percy Roxby.

He served as President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1957.

He wrote a history of the Isle of Man.

The University of Birmingham still has a Kinvig Geographical Society.

https://www.kinvigsociety.co.uk/

Obituary, written by Michael Wise of whom he was a mentor, as he was for Harry Thorpe.

Wise, M. J. “Obituary: Professor R. H. Kinvig.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 135, no. 3, 1969, pp. 485–87. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1797428. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

References

https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/27/4/540/2687639?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Robert Steel and the IBG

I've previously mentioned Robert Steel's involvement with the Institute of British Geographers.

While exploring some of the RGS' archive last week, I came across this copy of his book on 'the first fifty years' of the IBG. Sadly there was no time to  pick it up and take a look.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Dudley Stamp - a memorial Volume #2

A second post on the Memorial volume for Dudley Stamp, published by the IBG in 1968.

A final chapter was provided by former GA President Michael Wise.

In it he references the impact that Dudley Stamp on School Geography, including the mention in the TES at the top of this piece in 1955.

It also references the GA and their role in supporting the production of textbooks to set out an 'ideal syllabus'. The influence of the topics chosen back then persist even now. I may have to go back to that AGM to find out more.

There is also reference to Geographical Publications Ltd. set up by Stamp.

Dudley Stamp - a memorial volume #1

Another discovery while following a few leads.

It's a memorial volume to Professor Dudley Stamp.

Can be borrowed from the Internet Archive.

Image: Dudley and Elsa Stamp

It was published in 1968 by the Institute of British Geographers.

The contents are a Who's Who of prominent geographers at the time, 

The first section of the book was written by another former GA President: Robert Ogilvie Buchanan.

He talks about his first encounter with Dudley Stamp.

It talks about his time at the Geographical Association:

More to come in future posts.

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. 

IBG Conference Report - 1975

Until the mid 1970s, the GA Conference took place at the start of the year. That has been mentioned previously and was also mentioned in this report of the IBG Conference in 1975.

In his Presidential Address to the Institute, Prof. M. J. Wise encouraged his audience to reflect on their functions as teachers as well as researchers in geography. 

His title 'A university teacher of geography' related to the life of G. G. Chisholm, known to many for his Commercial Geography, and an active lecturer until 1926. 

The meticulous lectures delivered in morning dress must have captured the imagination of an audience which normally overlooked the value to man of places. 

Richard Hartshorne had seen Chisholm as an exception to the provincialism of other British Geographers of the period. (This is no longer the case, Prof. Wise pointed out: in the field of international contacts, British geographers are nowadays second to none.) 

Source:

“[Annual Conference Report].” Area, vol. 7, no. 1, 1975, pp. 50–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000934. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

1982: Professor Richard (Dick) Lawton

Updated August 2023

Richard (Dick) Lawton was an academic geographer who was active in all spheres of the subject during a long career, and involved in moves to improve the standard of teaching in universities.

He was born in County Durham, but he was linked with the University of Liverpool for his entire career. He was very much influenced by the teaching of a previous GA President,
Professor Percy Maude Roxby.

He was described by Bill Chambers (President in 2004) as

"a tough Yorkshireman and utterly committed to geography and to the GA especially on Merseyside."

His 1972 inaugural lecture, ‘An age of great cities’ (itself a classic Lawton tour-de-force apparently) and his 1987 Presidential Address to the Institute of British Geographers, ‘Peopling the past’ were said to have encapsulated his academic achievement.

He had a distinguished wartime career, as did many GA Presidents during this time.

His undergraduate studies were broken by three years (1943–46) as a sub‐lieutenant aboard the corvette HMS Primrose hunting U‐boats on the North Atlantic - an experience which I am sure informed his geography in many different ways.

His duties on board the ship included those of librarian, in charge of a set of the top‐secret Naval Intelligence Geographical Handbooks, many written by those who would become his tutors and his colleagues after the war was over, and some of whom we have featured in the posts on this blog of course.

From a description of his work:

He was a good and faithful servant of the (then) three principal professional organisations: the Geographical Association (Member of Council 1975–89 and President 1982–83); the Institute of British Geographers (Honorary Secretary 1973–76 and President 1986); the Royal Geographical Society (Member of Council 1986–89).

As an official or committee member Dick was always in total command of the details and could deal sharply with those who, having failed to ‘do their homework’, made lazy or ill-informed contributions to proceedings.

He wrote a useful piece on Career opportunities for Geographers in 'Geography' in 1980 as well, connecting with my own work in this area during 2020.

Source:

Lawton, R. (1980). CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR GEOGRAPHERS. Geography, 65(3), 236-244. Retrieved August 26, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40569280

His GA Presidential lecture was entitled: 'Space, Place and Time'

In it, he explores some important geographical concepts:

This particular quote from his address is interesting:

"Knowledge of places, awareness of space and perception of spatial order - both life-space and social space - is built up over time and in the context of shared cultural experience. Hence it is not equally open to all and is shaped by many factors such as age, education, opportunities of travel and the like. These interact over time in a complex way to create a hierarchy of personal space from the very familiar - home, workplace, neighbourhood - to the occasionally visited, which may be far in distance but not now necessarily in time (overseas holidays, and international business trips or conferences). Indeed, modern telephonic and radio communication is leading towards a micro-electronic era in which we may well witness the ultimate collapse of space by time. This substitutability of one dimension of our world by another is not new, as we shall see, but never before have the implications of it been so profound..." 

- there certainly have been some profound changes in our lives in the micro-electronic era...

In the Space section he references Richard Hartshorne and talks about the idea of "life space".

The last award he received was the RGS's prestigious Murchison Award in 1983 ‘for his contributions to historical geography and geographical education’. In his reply on behalf of those who received honours from the RGS that year Dick reflected his firm belief in the importance of geography (‘a truly universal subject in its appeal and relevance’) in education for citizenship, a concern advanced as Secretary of the Council of British Geographers (COBRIG)

An obituary was published in the Geographical Journal, following his death in 2010.

A few quotes from this piece:
In 1995 (in an essay on the historical geography of the British Isles published in German) he summarised his chief interest as the historical and social geography of the British Isles, especially the urban and population problems of industrial society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

"There was nothing narrow or instrumental in his teaching, with its invitations to explore beyond anything that might be regarded as ‘curriculum’ "

Expanding on this:

There was nothing narrow or instrumental in his teaching, with its invitations to explore beyond anything that might be regarded as ‘curriculum’ and its frequent historical, literary and biblical allusions enthusiastically delivered to classes who were assumed if not to know about them at least to savour them. Like many of his generation he had serious academic interests and knowledge far wider than those they expressed in their publications. That may seem strange in the current university climate but simply reflects a shift of priorities from teaching in its widest sense to research in its narrowest. 

What his students experienced was rock‐solid integrity from a teacher who demonstrated that knowledge mattered, and could open doors onto worlds they never knew existed. 

He did not patronise or talk down to them, but simply encouraged them to do better and better.

As with another President who was to follow him: Rex Walford, he also had a particular interest in music.

He was also, it seems an accomplished historian, and wrote a history of the Ryedale village of Marton.
He was interested in the developments of the village.

He is an authority on the historical and social geography of Britain and has written more than 150 research articles and books.

Professor Lawton says the Domesday Book village, which gets its name from a farm or place by a pool, was originally part of the lands of Sinnington Manor and was in the hands of Norman lords until the 16th century.

An RGS remembrance ends with these kind words:

This was a generous, fearless man who could direct a fiery indignation against humbug and intellectual dishonesty, while showing a deep sensitivity to understanding the problems and applauding the achievements of others. These were some of the many things we loved him for. It will be a duller world without him.

References
Obituary:
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00408.x

Selected publications 
Lawton R 1972 An age of great cities Town Planning Review 43 199–224 
Lawton R 1983 Space, place and time Geography 68 193–207 
Lawton R 1987 Peopling the past Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers new series 12 259–83 
Lawton R 2009 Marton: a short history Ryedale District Council Lawton R and Cunningham C M eds 1970 Merseyside: social and economic studies Longman, London 
Lawton R and Lee W R eds 1989 Urban population development in western Europe from the late-eighteenth to the early twentieth century Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 
Lawton R and Lee W R eds 2002 Population and society in western European port cities, c 1650–1939 Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 
Lawton R and Pooley C G 1992 Britain, 1740–1950: an historical geography Edward Arnold London Lawton R, Aspinall P J and Hudson D M 1982 Ellesmere Port: the making of an industrial borough Borough Council of Ellesmere Port, Neston, South Wirral 
Steel R W and Lawton R eds 1967 Liverpool essays in geography: a jubilee collection Longman, London

https://www.rgs.org/geography/news/richard-(-dick-)-lawton-(1925-2010)/
An influence on the work of Gerry Kearns:
https://hgrg.org.uk/how-i-became-a-geographer-2/

https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00408.x

- RGS obituary with further information and some images - worth reading.

https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00408.x#:~:text=Dick%20Lawton%20was%20an%20empiricist,to%20the%20Geographical%20Association%20showed.

Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Britain-1740-1950-Historical-Richard-Lawton/dp/0713165502
Liverpool Essays:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liverpool-geography-jubilee-collection-Richard/dp/B0014KRQ02
 co-written with former GA President Robert W Steel.

Lecture from GA Conference:
LAWTON, R. Changes in University Geography. Geography, vol. 63, no. 1, 1978,“www.jstor.org/stable/40568829. Accessed 25 Aug. 2020.


If anyone has any further information on Richard Lawton please get in touch as this entry is quite brief compared with some of the other recent entries.

Update: December 2020

In 2003, Chris Kington asked a number of former Presidents what had sparked their passion for geography. He lent me the letters and here is the response that Richard sent:

As with many Presidents, Dick mentioned his childhood, and a fascination with maps, followed by exploration of the local area: in his case the limestone across the moors.

He also had a "dynamic junior geography teacher" at Houghton-le-Spring Grammar School called Doris Parkinson. As with Richard Daugherty, Lawton was a scholarship boy, back in 1936.

I wonder whether Doris is a distant relation.

Richard says "What cricket mad schoolboy could resist a lesson in which the diversity of West Indian society was ullustrated from a photo of the touring side of, I think, 1937 with its ethnic mix from the captain, white of course, at that time, through varying degress of mixed blood to fully black...."

Doris was a Liverpool graduate, and that took him to Liverpool where he encountered many of the luminaries that have featured on this blog already: Percy Roxby, Wilfred Smith, Clifford Darby, Bill Mead, Frank Monkhouse and Harry Wilkinson.

He says that he learnt from them "not only about geography, but how to be a geographer".

Thanks to Chris Kington for the loan of the letters.

Update March 2021

Bill Chambers, President for 2004 remembered Dick Lawton getting him involved with the GA, as Dick was in charge of the GA's Liverpool Branch: He told me:

Once established from 1973 at Notre Dame College Liverpool (now Liverpool Hope University) and being responsible for the training of primary and secondary teachers it was a natural progression to join the local branch of the GA which was largely run by Professor Dick Lawton of Liverpool University. 

After a decade as Programme Secretary and later Chair of the Branch I was encouraged as part of my professional development by my head of department Alan Hammersley to contribute nationally and I joined the Environmental Education Working Group. The GA gave me the opportunity to work with the great geographers of the day and become aware of current developments in geography. It also gave me an opportunity to begin to publish both academic and pedagogical papers. I also made many lifelong friends including Tony Thomas the inspirational head of the Field Studies Council.

Updated August 2023

He co-edited a collection of essays on Liverpool with another former GA President with Liverpool connections: Robert Steel, published in 1967

Essays from generations of Univ of Liverpool-trained geographers from 1920s to 1960s. The anthology spans from Britain to Brasil, the USSR to southern Australia, and, timewise, from the Tertiary Era to the present day

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31406496394&searchurl=an%3Dsteel%2Brobert%2Bw%2Band%2Blawton%2Brichard%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3Dliverpool%2Bessays%2Bin%2Bgeography&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1#&gid=1&pid=1

https://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/4369206.picture-of-marton-through-the-ages/

Another book on Liverpool that he co-authored

Appears in this book - £150 though...

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/geographers-9781472512352/

1976: Professor Michael John Wise

Last updated July 2024

Michael Wise was 58 when he became the GA President, and working at the University of Birmingham. He is one of the most interesting and influential of all the GA's former Presidents, and has had one of the biggest impacts on geography with his varied connections and outputs.

He was born in 1918, and was brought up in Birmingham, and later linked with the University of Birmingham during his career.

He went to school with L J Jay (Leslie Jay), who worked as the Honorary Librarian of the GA from 1954 to 1973 (see previous post)

Here is a paragraph from the appreciation of L J Jay that Michael wrote following Jay's death in 1986.

In it, he describes the influence of the geography teacher they both had while they were at the same school as pupils.



From a piece he wrote about the work of the GA. (PDF download)


This is always worth remembering: the improving power of taking part in the community of practice that is the GA.

Michael was Programme Secretary to the IGC and was one of the IGU Presidents as well - this international work is important, and is continuing to this day. David Lambert certainly led a great deal of international work within the GA, and Alan Kinder and Becky Kitchen continue to work in other countries to develop their curricula, as well as another former President Margaret Roberts who has worked extensively in Singapore to develop their school geography.

Michael served on various Government commissions and committees (which would have contributed to the Policy work of the GA, something that continues to this day at that level). The connection with policy work is something that I have got increasingly involved in during the first year on the GA's Presidents Group as it is currently called. This has included consultations with OFQUAL, who are currently not getting particularly good press for their judgement over this year's exam results.

Another image from the LSE Archives.

There is a Michael Wise room in the Geography department at LSE. This was renamed some years after his death. Some memories of him here.

One particular contribution Michael made was as a member of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) during the late 70s and early 80s. One of the things that he did while there was to establish a Fellowship. One person who got the fellowship turned out to be Doreen Massey, who became one of the most influential geographers in recent decades, and also a former Honorary Vice President of the GA. (Doreen will have a post on the blog in due course)

His Presidential Address was called 'Geography in Universities and Schools. It tackled the issue that we still talk about today - the possible disconnect between school and university geography. It is worth reading, using the link at the bottom of the post.

He was interviewed in this film here, which provides a little more background to his interests, and makes him another rare President to appear on video until much closer to the present day:


Interview with Professor Michael Wise, Former President of the International Geographical Union, London School of Economics and Political Science. Interviewed by Anne Buttimer.


Michael also served as a member and President of many learned societies and was one of only two UK academics to have been President of all three UK geographical societies - the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Association and the Institute of British Geographers - as well as the International Geographical Union. 

He received the RGS Gill Memorial award in 1958 and Founder’s Medal in 1977, among many awards, and received the CBE in 1979.

(from the BBC obituary)

At his 90th birthday party, held at the LSE, according to the lengthy Independent obituary:

He read from a primary school essay that he wrote: “My favourite lesson is geography. I will tell you why. It is because it teaches me all about the world and all the things upon it.”

Michael was featured in a volume of Biographical Studies.

He wrote a chapter in a book that I have a copy of called 'Geographical Futures', and this paragraph is taken from that


Michael was mentioned by several former Presidents whom I was able to contact.

For example, Chris Kington very kindly lent me a copy of a journal piece that Michal wrote with his memories around becoming a geographer.

Wise, M. J. (2001). Becoming a geographer around the second world war. Progress in Human Geography, 25(1), 112–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913250102500112

This described some of his early geographical adventures.
I've previously mentioned a quote from this article which describes how he came across a book by H J Fleure.

He recalls being on active service in the Middle East, and the great pleasure he had in Baghdad in 1942 which came from "finding a copy of Fleure's Introduction to Geography (1929) and the poignancy struck at this time by his concluding words: 'the lives of men are bound up with the little bit of earth that is given to each to love, and the student of geography must set himself to understand the links that bind him there, and not only there, but also the very different ones that bind him and his fellow men in all lands' (p.79)

From Johnston and Board's piece: Read this!

Wise was a doughty campaigner for geography throughout the educational system, doing much work behind the scenes, in committees and other fora, as well as publishing papers such as that advocating geography’s role in technical education (1961a) which advanced his wider claim that geographers should (p.348):
"base our arguments not on the side-door entry of geography as a general education for citizenship, and as a background subject but, through the front entrance, on geography as a disciplined, practical study with its own techniques and tools directly applicable to the problems and tasks of the day. … Let us make geography a subject which does things, not merely one which reads about other people doing them."

And he wanted action to ensure that happened.

A few years later, in his presidential address to the GA, he called for it to ‘involve itself more actively than it has done in the recent past in debate on educational matters’ (1977b, 249) in an ‘aggressive defence of our subject and its approaches’ (p.256).
He noted that the discipline was changing rapidly in universities and wanted this recognised in schools, despite their need to cater not just for university entrants but also to ‘many groups of pupils with different ambitions, plans, and values’ (p.233). Steel (1983, 40 and 112) reports in his history of the IBG that Wise facilitated constructive engagement between the RGS and IBG councils in 1981, leading to the establishment of a Council of British Geographers (the two societies merged a decade later), and was instrumental in a far-reaching restructuring of the British National Committee for Geography, the body that, through the Royal Society, was responsible until 1990 for British geography’s links to international bodies such as the International Geographical Union and the International Cartographic Association (Anon. 1970; Geographical Journal 156, 1990, 350).

Larger plans for a Council of British Geography, initiated by the GA, were unsuccessful then, and although a council was established a few years later it has not played a major role, having last met in November 2012 (http://www.cobrig.org.uk/ (accessed 20 May 2016)).

During his RGS presidency Wise was also involved in the discussions that led to the establishment of the Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, later the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (http://www.the-academy.org.uk/ (accessed 20 May 2016).

Wise, Michael. “The Campaign for Geography in Education: The Work of the Geographical Association 1893–1993.” Geography, vol. 78, no. 2, 1993, pp. 101–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40572491

This is a useful document and have referred to this several times during the writing of this blog.















Michael was made an Honorary Member of the GA in 1980.

Michael sadly died in 2015, aged 97 - another former GA President to have approached 100 years of age.

References

BBC Obituary
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/obituaries/obituary-professor-michael-wise-cbe-mc 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-michael-wise-geographer-whose-skills-made-him-a-leading-force-in-his-discipline-for-more-a6808241.html - this is a lengthy piece.

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_John_Wise

I edited this entry to include a mention of Michael's GA Presidency, as I have with all other Wikipedia pages for Presidents. It's rare to get a Wikipedia page so recent to the present day.

Biography: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KU08DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT117&ots=5ELMysnSPh&dq=alexander%20carr-saunders%20geography&pg=PT101#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Address: WISE, M. J. “Geography in Universities and Schools.” Geography, vol. 62, no. 4, 1977, pp. 249–258. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40568785

Wise, Michael. “The Campaign for Geography in Education: The Work of the Geographical Association 1893–1993.” Geography, vol. 78, no. 2, 1993, pp. 101–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40572491

A detailed biography of Michael:
https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/138330669/MichaelJohnWise_F.pdf
(PDF download)

Wise, M. J. (2001). Becoming a geographer around the second world war. Progress in Human Geography, 25(1), 112–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913250102500112

LSE page: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/condolences/2015/10/26/michael-wise/?from_serp=1
Includes memories from former students such as this from Peter Mitchell.

I studied under Michael Wise 1957-60 and have the warmest memories of his teaching and his personal kindness. We found we were fellow residents of Finchley. I recall going to his inaugural lecture when he got his chair. His enthusiasm for human geography rubbed off on me and with his encouragement I became a town planner. In the 90s I met him once or twice when I was in LSE for BSPS meetings and he was the same as ever. Another nice memory was a field course in his original home ground of the Midlands: a gaggle of us were in an old quarry near Dudley and a small boy was eyeing us questioningly. Far from ignoring him, Michael greeted him with “Hello, our kid”. It’s the little things that you remember!

Update October 2020

He is remembered fondly by Richard Daugherty, who sent me a copy of a letter he received from Michael following the successful launch of 'Teaching Geography' journal which he helped make a case for. It was characteristic of him to thank people in this way when they did work for the GA, something that I hope Presidents have been getting better at in recent years.

Update November 2020

He was also fondly remembered by Denys Brunsden who told me:

The most influential President in my time was Michael Wise (also a fabulous Treasurer), before that S.W.Wooldridge was a monumental presence and Dudley Stamp put the GA on a sound financial course especially with his advice to Michael and in many 'hidden' ways.

Further memories of Michael Wise welcome.

Updated August 2023

A lengthy biography!

https://www.alumni.lse.ac.uk/s/1623/images/editor_documents/alumni_groups/king_s_-_lse_geog_alumni_society_newsletter_2016.pdf - memories of his time at LSE

Those who were at Juniper Hall will remember the final evening’s entertainment of Wise on the piano and Wooldridge rendering songs by Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Although he was instrumental in setting up seminars and courses for graduate students, his teaching was to undergraduates both in the Joint School and inter-collegiately for some special options. He continued Stamp’s interest in Applied Geography - his involvement in regional planning shifted from the West Midlands where it was honed, to London and the South East. 

Those who still remember the closure of LSE in 1969 and the highly charged political atmosphere will recall LSE’s finding room to continue teaching in Kings and temporary LSE Geography HQ in The Surrey, a pub then in Surrey Street. His military service during World War II, when he gained the Military Cross in Italy, was adapted to the organisation of field courses and handling student humour. Cooperation with colleagues applied across the range of courses, as I discovered when I returned as Lecturer. His door was “open” in the sense that he made time for us and students. 

We remember a long list of faithful secretaries whom he cared about, as well as other technical staff at LSE. Even when he was Pro-Director after his “retirement” in 1983 he eagerly agreed to promote students’ suggestion for a new electric locomotive on the West Coast line to be named London School of Economics. This was duly performed by Sir Huw Wheldon, LSE’s chairman of governors. in 1985. One of his last visits to LSE was to witness the unveiling of the conserved name plate in the George IV pub, now a part of LSE in February 2008.   

Michael Wise’s involvement in many of the School’s committees and those of the University was always in favour of student welfare, mostly academic. He was adept at garnering allies to achieve his aims. He supported staff and student when needed. Michael also remembered old students, retired staff not only academic or geographical, knowing their individual circumstances often to our surprise. Largely by his efforts he organised and ran for a long time the Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust in memory of his former colleague. This benefitted from his contacts and powers of persuasion, such that funds are still available, through our links with the Royal Geographical Society, for scholars registered at UK universities. 

He saw his career as one to serve others, following his mentor R.H.Kinvig at Birmingham.  

Michael Wise was only the second geographer to preside over all three main learned geographical societies.

 His work on the Departmental Committee on Smallholdings and the Ministry of Transport’s Advisory Committee on Landscape Treatment was recognised in the appointment of CBE in 1979. Internationally his work for the 1964 International Geographical Congress in London led to the IGU presidency and many international honours.  

At the centre of his life were his family – his wife Barbara, who died in 2007, daughter and son, five grand-children and four great-grand-children to whom he was devoted. An obituary was published in The Independent on 13 January 2016. 

Ron Johnston and I would welcome any recollections any members may like to share. 

Updated November 2023

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/files/138330669/MichaelJohnWise_F.pdf 

Michael’s first and last published research papers (1948b, 1977) were on the teaching of geography. 

As a trained teacher, he placed great store on how geography was taught, as reflected in his commitment to the work of the Geographical Association (GA), and his presidential addresses to that body, the Institute of British Geographers (IBG), and the RGS. To the RGS in 1981 and 1982 he took the opportunity to promote geography as the ‘rewarding study of the rich mosaic of life and landscape’ (Wise 1982, 307). 

The GA, established by Mackinder and others in 1893 at the height of the crusade, continued the campaign over the next century, celebrated by Wise at its centenary (Wise 1993).  He contributed substantially to those campaigns, as in his membership of a committee that considered the overlap between geography in school sixthforms and university first years (GA 1962).    

"Geographers should base our arguments not on the side-door entry of geography as a general education for citizenship, and as a background subject but, through the front entrance, on geography as a disciplined, practical study with its own techniques and tools directly applicable to the problems and tasks of the day. … Let us make geography a subject which does things, not merely one which reads about other people doing them. "

He was Treasurer of the GA from 1967 to 1976, and its President from 1976 to 1977, and was President of the IBG in 1974, having previously served on its council and then as a Vice President; he was made an Honorary Member in 1989. He gave much time to all of these posts, taking good care of their resources and dispensing much quiet and sage advice, as he did also to the Dudley Stamp Memorial Trust, established after the 1964 London International Geographical Congress to provide grants to young scholars; he was its Secretary from 1966 to 1988, and then its Chair until 2005 (when he was made its honorary President). 

He was also the founding President of the Transport Studies Society and for ten years (1973–1984) chaired the Executive Committee of the Association of Agriculture and, although he held no office, he was much involved, as his unpublished 1992 paper shows, in the negotiations that led to the establishment of the Regional Studies Association. 

Interesting given the news about Alan Kinder's new job for 2024.

Updated July 2024

Bibliographical Studies of Geographer volumes - this one can be partly read on Google Books.

He did so much in his lifetime! A remarkable contribution to geography.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LU08DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%E2%80%98Sir+Dudley+Stamp:+his+Life+and+Times%E2%80%99+in+Land+Use+and+Resources:+Dudley+Stamp+Memorial+Volume.+London:+Institute+of+British+Geographers,+Special+Publication+1,+261%E2%80%939.&source=bl&ots=ajihq0LAtb&sig=ACfU3U2znu4Kxkq80gQzYVLOPLoplli9JA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiz6Oq83a6HAxUXQUEAHbIRDmg4ChDoAXoECAMQAw#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98Sir%20Dudley%20Stamp%3A%20his%20Life%20and%20Times%E2%80%99%20in%20Land%20Use%20and%20Resources%3A%20Dudley%20Stamp%20Memorial%20Volume.%20London%3A%20Institute%20of%20British%20Geographers%2C%20Special%20Publication%201%2C%20261%E2%80%939.&f=false   

There is mention of his children: Janet Meyer and John Wise.

Source of these images is the link above.

1973: Professor Robert Walter Steel, CBE

Last updated July 2024

Professor Robert W Steel was an academic geographer. He was connected with the University of Liverpool for much of his career and also had a connection with Swansea University.

He was involved in writing a history of the Institute of British Geographers and a number of books on the geography of Africa, and the Tropics.

He also edited the book: British Geography, 1918-1945, published by Cambridge University Press, which described the early part of the 20th Century, and which I have referred to online during the writing of this blog.

One chapter was written by J A Patmore, another former GA President.

I was not initially able to find very much about Professor Steel, as with other Presidents from this period, as it predates most online documents but is also after the period when other documents exist.
Robert was born in East Anglia, and was a fan of Norwich City FC, which provides a small personal connection.

I did find a description from the Liverpool University Archives.

Professor Robert Walter Steel CBE (1915-1997) began his academic career at Oxford University in 1938. As University Lecturer in Commonwealth Geography (1947-56), Lecturer in Geography, St Peter's Hall (1951-56) and Official Fellow and Tutor in Geography at Jesus College (1954-56), to which he had previously been affiliated as both an undergraduate and postgraduate, His wife Eileen was a fellow Oxford geography graduate.

Steel's main area of academic interest concentrated upon the political geography of Tropical Africa. He carried out early fieldwork in Sierra Leone.

Upon the death of Professor Wilfred Smith in 1956, he was offered and accepted the position of John Rankin Professor of Geography at the University of Liverpool.
Fully integrating himself into university life, Steel quickly became an important figure and was instrumental in the establishment of the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies. 

Indeed, until his departure from the University of Liverpool in 1974 to take up the position of Principal Designate at University College Swansea, he assumed much administrative responsibility and in addition to his role as Head of the Geography Department, he acted as Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1965-1968) and Pro-Vice Chancellor (1971-1973). Positions of great responsibility.

He had considered staying at Liverpool to end his career but was persuaded to move to Swansea.

In these days of decolonising the curriculum it's interesting that he taught Colonial Geography, which then became Commonwealth Geography.

Keenly involved with many geographic associations, Steel played a central role within the Institute of British Geographers IBG; acting as Member of the Council (1947-60), Acting Secretary (1948), Assistant Secretary (1949-50), Honorary Editor of Publications (1950-60), Vice-President (1966-67), President (1968) and Honorary Member (1974). Furthermore, he occupied the position of President in several other societies, including Section 'E' of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1966), (1970-71) and the Inter-Universities Council for Higher Education Overseas (1971-81). He also wrote a Jubilee history of the IBG in 1984.

He was made an Honorary Member of the GA, its highest honour, in 1982.

Steel's commitment to all geographic concerns is similarly demonstrated by his work for various government bodies. As well as spending the inter-war years working with the Naval Intelligence Division in an attempt to produce a handbook for soldiers posted to the Tropics, he was also employed by the War Office, Colonial Office, Social Science Research Council and Merseyside Social and Economic Survey. This makes him another of several GA Presidents who saw military service in this area, using their skills in intelligence.

Professor Steel sadly died in 1997, after being involved with the GA for over fifty years. A tremendous length of service to the Association. There are a few members with similar length of service around - they received badges during 2020.

His obituary was written by another former GA President and colleague: Richard Lawton.

References
Professor Steel's papers are held at the University of Liverpool. Within those would be plenty of further information to complete this blog post:
http://sca-arch.liv.ac.uk/ead/search?operation=full&recid=gb141unistaffs-t-d91

Steel, R. W. “Some Geographical Problems of Land Use in British West Africa.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 14, 1948, pp. 27–42. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621259

Image: thanks to former GA President, Professor Andrew Goudie for sourcing this image. 

If anyone has further information on Robert, and his time as GA President it would as always be appreciated.

British Geography 1918-1945, Edited by Robert.W Steel - published in 1987.
Chapter 12 was by J A Patmore, where he gave a personal perspective on the period.

In 1972, he gave a paper at the 22nd International Geographic Congress in Canada, which referenced several previous Presidents.
Steel, Robert W., and J. Wreford Watson. “Geography in the United Kingdom 1968-72: Report to the 22nd International Geographical Congress at Montreal, Canada, in August 1972.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 138, no. 2, 1972, pp. 139–153. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1795958. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.

Obituary published in 'Geography':
Lawton, Richard. “R.W. Steel 1915-1997.” Geography, vol. 83, no. 2, 1998, pp. 188–188. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573164. Accessed 20 July 2020.

Update

Thanks to Chris Kington for telling me that Robert Steel was good friends with Sheila Jones and Pat Cleverley - see later blog posts for more images.

Update October 2020

Image from University of Swansea post, written by David Herbert. The best image I've found so far of Robert.

Image: Courtesy of the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University (reference UNI/SU/PC/9/1/2;75)

https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea-2020/page/on-our-doorstep

David Herbert said:

The RAE had a dramatic impact on universities. Now we had to focus on research and staff became much more aware of the need to publish; teaching was definitely pushed down the list of priorities. We saw that many staff were ‘research inactive’ and had not published for some time. Years later I was part of a conversation with Martin Harris, then Vice Chancellor at Manchester and one of the original authors of RAE. He admitted that they had sought to stimulate research at UK universities but had not fully anticipated some of the knock-on effects. There were of course other University level issues arising at that time, not least those emanating from the Department of Philosophy. These were not new. They had impacted immediately on Robert Steel when he became Principal. Robert was a geographer and I had known him before he came to Swansea. He once confided to me that he had been happily contemplating ending his career as John Rankin Professor of Geography at Liverpool before being tempted with the Swansea post. Certainly his early experience with the Swansea philosophers did not convince him that he had made the right choice. He settled well though with help from his successive Vice Principals, T.J. Morgan, Ivor Isaac and David Pritchard.

Update: December 2020

In 2003, Chris Kington asked a number of former Presidents what had sparked their passion for geography. He lent me the letters and a long standing member of the GA: David Cooper mentioned Robert as being particularly supportive of his plans to become a geographer.

He describes in Autumn 1954 having gained a scholarship "unexpectedly being taken into the care of Robert Steel. When he asked me what I wanted to be, I told him 'a University lecturer'. At Oxford, besides Robert Steel the other influences were Martyn Webb who I used to cycle up and down Cowley Road with...It was Robert Steel who encouraged me to research the Oxford Clay Vale Landforms."

Many thanks to Chris Kington for the loan of the letters.

Updated January 2021

Thanks to Elizabeth Steel for getting in touch in early January 2021 to provide a few additional details and corrections on this entry. I am very grateful.

Robert Steel was awarded a CBE in 1983, and joins other former GA Presidents who have received honours.

After he retired from being Principal of Swansea he became the Chairman of the Welsh Advisory Board from 1982-86. He also became an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College , Oxford from 1982.

In retirement he continued with his interest in Africa and was the British Council representative on the Councils of several African Universities. He went to meetings, I remember in Malawi and Lesotho

During his time at Liverpool three of his colleagues became Professors of Geography and have also been Presidents of the GA: Professors Gregory, Lawton and Patmore.

Updated August 2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walter_Steel  - provided a Norfolk link.

Also date of birth: 31 July 1915 – 29 December 1997

Robert Steel was educated at Great Yarmouth Grammar School and the Cambridge and County High School for Boys. 

He then attended Jesus College, Oxford, matriculating in 1934 and obtaining a first-class degree in 1937.

He also presented at the GA Conference in 1980 at the LSE.

@CanCommSchols alumnus Robert W. Steel (@Carleton_U, 1970, d. 1997) was a President of @The_GA, @ULiverpool13 for much of his career as Dean and pro-VC and also as Principal of @SwanseaUni. He was an expert in African and Tropical geography. https://t.co/GWa8QBQsvx

— Canada CommSchols (@CanCommSchols) August 21, 2021

Updated July 2024

A mention for Robert in an article published in the Journal of Historical Geography. 

For British geographer L. Dudley Stamp, by the early 1960s geography had established itself as an academic discipline because it had taken ‘its place among the older disciplines of science, the social sciences and the liberal arts in every university of Britain’.14 Still, its quest for institutional recognition pivoted upon its applications more so than its theories. In a paper published in the journal Nature in 1960, and with reference to Stamp's Land Utilisation Survey of Britain (1930s–1940s) and 1960 book Applied Geography, as well as the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geography's Anglo-Polish (1959, 1962 and 1967) and Polish-American (1964) seminars on Problems in Applied Geography, Robert Steel sought to raise awareness within the wider scientific community of geography's applied credentials:


The application of geography to the study of a wide range of problems has made remarkable progress in recent years, partly during, and partly because of, the Second World War. Geography made a substantial contribution to the British War effort both in the planning of campaigns and in the reorganization of the nation's economy, and since the War geographers have been active in the field of planning.15

Ref: Robert W. Steel, ‘Applied Geography’ Nature 192 (1961) 715–717 (p. 715).