The mystery of 1923 - The Very Rev Principal Sir George Adam Smith MA LLD DBA

It appears that the President for 1923: Sir John Russell, was not originally going to be the GA President.

In Autumn 2021, this announcement went into 'The Geographical Teacher'

Source: “Editorial.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 11, no. 3, 1921, pp. 131–135. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40555625. Accessed 11 Apr. 2021

I came across this while looking for a little more information on Robert Cecil's speech as President, as my own is scheduled to take place 100 years after his and I wanted to refer to it as I remember it had quite an interesting opening line....

It turns out that the President elect was replaced .

I was unable to find out why, and the journals don't mention any particular reason: they just announce that the new President will be John Russell.

So who was The Very Rev Principal Sir George Adam Smith MA LLD DBA?

It turns out he was a Scottish theologian.

The GA had previously had President(s) with this interest and specialism.

He was born in Calcutta in 1856, where his father was Principal of the Doveton College, a boys' school in Madras. By 1870 the family had returned to Scotland and were living at Scagore House in Edinburgh.

He was educated at Edinburgh in the Royal High School.

He then studied Divinity at the University of Edinburgh and the New College, graduating MA in 1875.

After studying for summer semesters as a postgraduate at the University of Tübingen (1876) and the University of Leipzig (1878) and travelling in Egypt and Syria. He was ordained into the Free Church of Scotland in 1882 and served at the Queen's Cross Free Church in Aberdeen.

In 1892 he was appointed Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament subjects in the Free Church College at Glasgow. 
In 1909 he was appointed Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, a post he held until his retirement in 1935. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1916, and was knighted in the same year.

He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1916-17. In 1917 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

His main work was the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1894, followed by 25 editions), which proved immensely popular as the best-written and most scholarly account of the subject. He had a profound understanding of the permanent geographical factors and their influence on history.

He also prepared an Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1915, 1936)

Publications

The Book of Isaiah (2 vols)
The Book of the Twelve Prophets (2 vols)
Modern Criticism and Preaching of the Old Testament
The Forgiveness of Sins
Four Psalms
The Life of Henry Drummond

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adam_Smith

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Adam-Smith

https://www.nature.com/articles/1351027a0

http://www.glasgowwestaddress.co.uk/1909_Glasgow_Men/Smith_Rev_George_Adam.htm

Image from Wikipedia - Creative Commons licensed

JISC Archives

https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/ba99df00-45bc-31f7-96d5-d35100c5b697

- I wonder if the answer lies in here.

http://www.glasgowwestaddress.co.uk/1909_Glasgow_Men/Smith_Rev_George_Adam.htm

A book on his life:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/fixing-the-indemnity-the-life-and-work-of-sir-george-adam-smith-1856-1942/

If anyone is able to shed any light on the mystery please get in touch as always. He would have been 67 in 1923 so did was he perhaps ill? He didn't die until 1942.

New Years Honours

Updated January 2021

Lovely news today that former GA President Margaret Roberts has been awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours List.

Here she is working with teachers in Singapore in 2016.

The citation mentions the GA:

Margaret Grace Roberts. 

External Examiner and President, Institute of Education and Geographical Association. 

For services to Education. 

(Sheffield, South Yorkshire)

Margaret was GA President in 2008.

Other GA Presidents to gain awards or honours:

Richard Daugherty, OBE

Eleanor Rawling, MBE

Denys Brunsden, OBE

Rex Walford, OBE

Frank Debenham, OBE

Harry Thorpe, OBE

J R James, OBE

Osbert John Radcliffe Howarth, OBE

Leonard Brooks, OBE

Kenneth Charles Edwards, CBE

John Allan Patmore, CBE

Michael John Wise, CBE

J A Steers, CBE

Sydney William Wooldridge, CBE

Robert Steel, CBE (awarded in 1983 - thanks to Elizabeth Steel for details)

Sir Halford J Mackinder

John Linton Myres, OBE (later Sir...)

Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

Sir Richard Arman Gregory (first Baronet)

Sir Harry Alexander Fanshawe Lindsay, CBE

Sir William Mitchell Ramsay

Sir Patrick Abercrombie

Sir Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders

Colonel Sir Henry G Lyons

Colonel Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich

Sir John Russell

Sir Charles Close

Sir William Leslie Mackenzie

Sir Cyril Norwood

Sir Thomas Henry Holland

Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp, CBE

Sir Josiah Stamp (later Lord Stamp)

Lord James Scorgie-Meston

Lord Nathan

Lord Robert Cecil - also a Nobel Prize winner

William George Arthur Ormsby Gore (later Lord Harlech)

Also good to hear that Professor Mark Brandon from the Open University has also been awarded an MBE for his work in Polar science.

He has helped support the geography teacher community in different ways over the years through his work.

A lovely quote from Margaret on the GA website.

“I was very surprised to receive the award and felt very honoured, particularly when there are so many people in geographical education who have worked so hard to promote good practice. I would not have been able achieve what I have done without the support of the community of the Geographical Association. Through the GA I have met and shared ideas with so many inspirational people. The GA has given me opportunities to publish my ideas and those publications have led to further opportunities to present work at conferences and to work internationally. I feel most fortunate to have had this support but feel a bit parasitic, feeding off the ideas of others and incorporating them into my own thinking.”

For those wishing to incorporate some of Margaret’s inspirational ideas into their own thinking, a good place to start would be:

Geography Through Enquiry (2013)

Or listen to Margaret talk about her life and career in education on GeogPod.

1931: Sir (William) Leslie Mackenzie

Last updated May 2024

Sir Leslie Mackenzie was a medical administrator who didn't have an obvious link with Geography at first glance.

His work did however help develop the sub-field of medical geography.

We now have plenty of interest in the geography of disease, and the use of GIS, with John Snow's cholera map, to the present day use of mapping and statistics (by the late Hans Rosling and others) to stem the spread of the Ebola virus.

He was born in Scotland, and educated in Aberdeen, before teaching at a girls' school. He graduated in Classics and Philosophy from Aberdeen University.

He became interested in medicine, trained in medicine and then became the Medical Officer the Wigtown and Kirkcudbright area. He had expertise in the water supply and link to health and tackled a local Smallpox outbreak. He dealt with tuberculosis infections, and became a Medical Officer on the Board of Health for Scotland before retiring in 1928.

Mackenzie was considered a radical by his peers in terms of promoting a movement of personal fitness rather than trying to control the environment. His colleagues regarded him “with awe, as a radical philosopher who saw medicine not as a palliative nor a means of private gain, but as an instrument of social development”.

(Via Wikipedia entry under CC license)

He was also a proponent of council housing. This was certainly an important area, and one that should be returned to reduce several issues we have currently.

Mackenzie served on a number of other commissions during his long and productive career. One of the most notable was the royal commission on housing between 1913 and 1917. 

He actively drafted topics to be addressed and even took an interest in drafting the 1919 Housing Bill itself. His champion cause was to introduce state-subsidised council housing. He was considered by his peers to have played an effective role in the inclusion of this issue.

Another important contribution was to help introduce school meals.

He demonstrated the poor condition of inner city children and presented it to the royal commission after he surveyed 600 schoolchildren. His report led to the introduction of a school meals service and medical inspection after much debate in Parliament. Something else we have to thank him for.

He also travelled to Kentucky - as described here:

https://www.wihb.scot.nhs.uk/looking%20back/Stories/LeslieMackenzie.htm

He was knighted before taking up the GA Presidency.

The 1930 Annual Report mentions him.

“ANNUAL REPORT, 1930.” Geography, vol. 16, no. 1, 1931, pp. 54–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40557801. Accessed 6 May 2024.

His Presidential Address was unsurprisingly on the theme of medical geography. See later for some more details on the content:



In it, he outlined some of the ideas that he had developed during his career related to the control of disease, introducing ideas which are still taught at 'A' level in particular.
He was apparently known for his "pawky humour".

Mackenzie died in 1935, just a few years after the end of his Presidency. His wife continued similar work after his death.

His death was announced in Nature in 1935

https://www.nature.com/articles/135364a0.pdf

References
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mackenzie_(doctor)

I edited this page to add the GA Presidency role to it.

Mackenzie, Leslie. “A HEALTH ADMINISTRATOR'S ATTITUDE TO GEOGRAPHY.” Geography, vol. 17, no. 1, 1932, pp. 1–10. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40558124 - Presidential Address.
Image source: Wikimedia - CC licensed

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5309662/ - obituary
https://archive.org/details/healthschoolchi00mackgoog/page/n4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5309662/pdf/edinbmedj75109-0045.pdf

If anyone has any further information on this GA President's role, please get in touch. This is quite a brief entry, and I'd like to add more if possible.

Updated August 2021

It seems that Mackenzie had a lot of useful thoughts on public health that were ahead of their time. He hated spitting as he felt it helped spread TB. He also tried to reduce overcrowding for health benefits.

😍 this 1900 Lecture on the "Working Man's Home" by W Leslie Mackenzie. He demonstrates a disinfectant sprayer to "turn dust into mud", having just outlined a plan for state-run creches & a hot take on the regulation of overcrowding. Next: food storage #HealthAndHousing @HSA_UK pic.twitter.com/tj35Rl3b4G

— Craig Gurney (@CraigTweeted) April 8, 2021

Updated August 2023

A report on Leslie Mackenzie's GA Conference, including details of his address in 1932: It's interesting to see that some of the lectures were attended by over four hundred people!

Twenty six firms also took part in the publishers' exhibition.

https://www.nature.com/articles/129138a0.pdf 

Updated April 2024

“ANNUAL REPORT, 1930.” Geography, vol. 16, no. 1, 1931, pp. 54–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40557801. Accessed 6 May 2024. 

References to several other Presidents here too:

This also pointed out the change in location to Manchester:

" in the Municipal High School of Commerce, Princess Street, Manchester, in premises generously allocated to our use by the Education Committee of that City. The change brought with it the possibility of converting our Library into a Reference Library, and the equipment of that Library with a collection of atlases has been facilitated by a generous gift made to the Association by the Rt. Hon. the late Lady Courtney of Penwith. 

The collection of Russian soil profiles mentioned above has been placed on exhibition with explanatory notes and maps in the Association's Library, and projects are in hand for a large expansion of collections."