Biographies of all the Presidents of the Geographical Association since the founding of the Association in 1893. Researched by Alan Parkinson (GA President 2021-22), with contributions from others, including the former Presidents themselves where possible.
I recently had a query about the GA Conference in 1982.
From this description, it seems that due to the LSE being unavailable for the usual period of time (?) the sessions were divided between the LSE and the RGS. It was remembered by a few people in my network, who attended the event.
The Annual Conference was held from 14th- 16th April around the theme "Focus on Europe". This was a new-style Conference since the sessions at LSE were confined to two days, preceded by a late-afternoon and evening session at the RGS. The success of these and attendant innovations were assessed in the report.
Source
Coates, Bryan E., et al. “Annual Report of the Geographical Association 1982.” Geography, vol. 68, no. 2, 1983, pp. 154–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40570663. Accessed 9 June 2024.
I have covered the story of the previous GA Chief Executives as part of the writing of this blog.
It was announced today that Alan Kinder is going to be stepping down as Chief Executive of the Geographical Assocation. He is moving to a new job with the Regional Studies Association in 2024.
The Chair of the RSA Board is Professor Neil Lee, Geography Department, London School of Economics and readers of the blog will know that the GA and LSE were connected for many decades, with some former GA Presidents being drawn from LSE staff, and the GA Conference being held there for many years too.
Alan leaves the GA in a strong position having completed 11 years in post. He has been an excellent Chief Executive, taking over from Professor David Lambert.
I first knew Alan when he co-chaired the Secondary Phase Committee I served on from 2004, when he was an Advisory teacher in London. He also co-edited the KS3 Toolkit series in 2007ish which I contributed to. I have co-presented with him at GA Conferences.
He has overseen some dramatic changes in the GA's structure, staffing and operations and taken it through the pandemic to emerge in a very strong position with record membership levels.
I wish him all the best for his next challenge.
This also means that there is an exciting job opportunity for someone as well: as the GA's next Chief Executive.
Yesterday was also the deadline for nominations for GA President 2025-26 and it will be interesting to find out who has put themselves forward...
Statements below from the GA website:
GA Chief Executive Alan Kinder said: “As a former teacher of geography, it has been the most enormous honour and privilege to have served as the GA’s Chief Executive for more than eleven years. This is a vibrant community, supporting a vital part of every young person’s education. Teachers of geography deserve the assistance of an independent subject association, focused squarely on their needs and interests, and I hope I have been able to play a role in representing and supporting teachers effectively during my time in post. As I begin to prepare for the exciting professional challenges that lie ahead for me, I’m confident that the GA will use its current strategy as a strong foundation for further progress in the years ahead.” GA Chair of Trustees Professor Alastair Owens said:
“Alan Kinder has been an outstanding Chief Executive of the Geographical Association. Over his eleven years of energetic and committed leadership, he has worked tirelessly to support the geography education community, resulting in unparalleled levels of engagement with the Association’s activities and a doubling of its membership. Alan is a skilled and influential advocate for the discipline while also being a generous mentor, colleague and friend. While sad that he will be moving on from the GA, I congratulate him warmly on his new roles at the Regional Studies Association.
A reminder that Dudley Stamp was GA President in 1950, well after he started work on the survey. He was also a million selling textbook author.
It outlines the background to the survey:
Sir Dudley Stamp’s aim was to undertake a detailed field-by-field survey of England, Wales and Scotland to find out exactly what the surface of the land was being used for. The idea grew out of his work as Chairman of the Regional Studies Committee of the Geographical Association in the late 1920s. British agriculture had been facing a long and severe depression, mainly because of the increase in world food supplies and competition from cheaper producers. Many towns and cities had been growing at a steady rate since the industrial revolution, with low profits and low wages in the countryside speeding the drift of labour from the land.
Stamp envisaged the Survey as acting as, in his phrase, a “modern Domesday Book”. This comparison caused some confusion at the time, in that it led some people to think that the Survey was part of a large tax-gathering exercise. But in many ways it is very apt: it was a comprehensive national survey that was designed to be of contemporary use as an administrative tool, but it also formed a permanent record of the country’s landscape at a particular time, something that is now of enormous historical value.
Stamp envisaged that much of the field work would be done by volunteers, mainly children from local schools and colleges. He also saw the project as a national educational exercise, an opportunity to interest young people in their local environment, to develop their observational and map reading skills, and to give them what Stamp called “a training in citizenship”, with each region playing its part in a nationwide scheme.
Few people had the profile and the force of will of Stamp to pull off such an ambitious project.
In autumn 1930 he contacted the directors of education in counties across the whole of Britain to explain the project and ask them to coordinate work in their areas. He then spent the next year touring the country to talk to head teachers and education committees and taking out parties to demonstrate field work methods. He estimated that in this first year he covered almost 2,000 miles a month, with his wife acting as chauffeur. By mid-1931, the Survey was underway in most counties in England, and by early 1932 in Wales and Scotland also.
Consider these statistics:
Stamp estimated that there were about 20,000 sheets to cover, with each sheet taking two to three days to complete. Field surveying started in October 1930, but most of the work was done between 1931 and 1934. During this period Stamp continued to tour the country extensively, meeting with local officials and offering encouragement to field workers. The Survey also issued regular bulletins to the volunteers to keep them informed on the progress of the project as a whole and to clarify questions or problems with the surveying.
By January 1932 some 400 sheets had been returned, and by January 1934 this had risen to over 15,000. The bulk of the fieldwork was finished by the end of 1935, with a flying squad of surveyors, mainly geography students or former geography students from London University, finishing off remoter areas that local volunteers could not cover. This stage of the project was clearly an enormous undertaking and by the end Stamp estimated that it had involved about a quarter of a million school children, as well as teachers and other adults.
One of the key people in the survey, and much forgotten is Eunice Wilson.
She is pictured in the blog post.
Eunice Biki Wilson, 1984. IMAGELIBRARY/755. LSE.
She started at the LSE as a cartographic assistant on the LUS. It was an interesting post that soon absorbed her talent and imagination and she rapidly developed skills that made her a pioneer of cartographic illustration. As new applications were found for the LUS in the field of land use planning, and as its work intensified, Biki eventually found herself as Chief Cartographer in charge of a new drawing office attached to the Land Use Division of Ministry of Agriculture
The survey results proved their value during and after the Second World War.
The very last area to be surveyed was part of the Isle of Arran in September 1941, although all other areas were recorded by 1939. The surveys were extensively cross-checked by the team, even including Stamp with his wife as chauffeur: ‘I must have covered thousands of miles myself, often standing up on the front seat of my car with my head through the sunshine roof and a roll of six-inch maps in front of me’ (Stamp, 1948). The maps were also cross-checked with adjacent sheets when reduced to the one-inch scale.
Here's the map that features my village in Norfolk
The 1980 Conference programme, when John Allan Patmore of the University of Hull was GA President.
Some excellent sessions were included here. I would like to have seen W.G. Hoskins talking about the English landscape, and also the Balls Brothers wine reception on the Strand to mingle with the speakers.
Paula Richardson was awarded Honorary GA Membership at the GA Conference in 2021 - the Association's highest honour. I am working with her on an event to take place next year which will be launched later in the year.
She mentioned in our discussions that she remembered her first GA Conference. This took place in 1971 at the London School of Economics: the venue for the GA conference for many years.
She remembers meetings in small rooms, up lots of winding stairs, whe she had the chance to hear 'the great and the good' of the time, such as Arthur Holmes.
I hunted out the report on that conference from 'Geography'.
The main theme of this very well-attended conference, again held in the London School
of Economics, was Geography in School and capacity audiences were privileged to hear a most
stimulating series of lectures.
Mrs. I. M. Long, in her Presidential Address showed how, at a time of sweeping changes in education,
it is still of prime importance to interest children in the work they are doing. She demonstrated
a method by which this interest might be gauged over a group of 1800 boys and girls of varying
abilities and in many types of school. Professor N. V. Scarfe (Dean, Faculty of Education,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver), taking as his title "Games, Models and Reality
in the Teaching of Geography in Schools", showed how new techniques involving inductive
thinking should be used with discrimination to demonstrate real situations, but only after
children have employed deductive methods in relation to the real world. In his lecture
entitled "Recent Advances in Climatology and their Relevance to Schools", Professor T. J.
Chandler (University College London) demonstrated in masterly fashion the circulation of
the atmosphere, while Mr. C. E. Everard (Queen Mary College, London) in his paper
"Geomorphology in Schools" urged teachers to look always at the totality of the environ-
ment and to work wherever possible from real examples. Most informative papers on "Geography Examinations" and on "Geography and Curriculum Development" were read by
Mr. B. S. Roberson (University of London, Institute of Education) and Miss Mary Goss
(Staff Inspector, Inner London Education Authority). Mr. Roberson dealt with the structure
and evaluation of G.C.E. O- and Α-level examinations while Miss Goss drew together and
summarized the various aspects of the current changes in the field of education.
Paula aso talked about visiting a school in Farnham and there was a part-time / supply teacher there who drew an amazing block diagram of South Downs, and when she got talking to him it turned out to be Eric Young who said "you may have seen my book" - Young and Lowry of course. The classic text from when I did my 'A'levels. I have a copy in my collection.
Source:
“Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 56, no. 2, 1971, pp. 154–159. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567515. Accessed 31 May 2021.
Thanks to former President Richard Daugherty for sending through a copy of the conference handbook for the conference in his Presidential year. It was held at LSE. There's plenty of lovely details in here from that year's conference, and will post some of them our on the blog as we go through the next week or so. All such ephemera and conference documents and images welcome.
"Field time is your most precious time - how precious you will know only when its days are past"
(Sauer, 1956)
Emeritus Professor Denys Brunsden is a legendary geomorphologist, whose work will be familiar to many, particularly with respect to coasts. He has also collaborated frequently with another former President: Andrew Goudie.
He was a leading person in the successful campaign for the designation of the Jurassic Coast as a World Heritage Site, acting as a Trustee for many years, and is now a Patron of this classic Coastal location - a venue for generations of geography fieldtrips, and classic case study in many textbooks. This has been a coastline which has been part of his life for decades.
Denys is still active, and this video is one that I have used each year for my teaching, looking at the potential impact of coastal erosion on the town of Lyme Regis, and the need to manage it. I try to get to Lyme Regis at least once a year, and we just managed it this year... Denys has written about this area in a large number of books and other papers.
The International Association of Geomorphologists, which Denys helped to instigate, has a Brunsden medal which is awarded annually for work in this area.
Denys was born close to the Jurassic Coast area as well, in Torquay in 1936.
He was educated at Torquay Boys Grammar School, before earning a place at King's College, London.
In 1956 I went up to Kings College, London, and was advised to study under Sidney Wooldridge, at that time the great geomorphologist. Geomorphology is the study of the shape of the earth, the landforms, and the processes that create them. I was mesmerised by his teaching, and being a bit more mature than the other students I worked harder and got a good degree. When I finished my degree, Wooldridge asked me if I’d like to join as a junior member of staff—straight out of graduation—and I jumped at it, teaching 6 hours of tutorials a week and completing my PhD at the same time. And there I stayed, for the rest of my working life, finishing up as Emeritus Professor and Fellow of the College. It has been my place.
I am sure that I remember Denys speaking about the Karakoram trip at Sheffield University when I was doing my 'A' level Geography around 1982 and we visited to hear the talk. I had the article clipped out of a magazine for some years.
Denys was a Professor of Geography when he became GA President. He has also worked as a consultant in Engineering Geomorphology.
From 'Bridport Life' in 2015:
"I was part of the British Geomorphological Research Group, a new growing group of “young Turks”. We were creating a new subject, writing all the textbooks, each one of us a specialist—one on deserts, one on glaciers, me on landslides. I was one of four people who started a company called Geomorphological Services Ltd—later we went on to create the International Association of Geomorphologists—and that took me to consultancies in some 28 countries and incredible situations; the Ok Tedi gold mine landslide disaster in Tibet; Papua New Guinea, the Dharan to Dhankula Highway in Nepal; all the work in Dubai surveying for the new airport and dry dock infrastructure, at a time when only 18,000 people lived there, there was no high-rise, and dhows were going back and forth across the creek. Even now I’m working for BP offshore looking at the sea bed for pipelines and well sites."
His Presidential Address was called 'The Science of the Unknown' and referred to the importance of fieldwork as well as other things.
There are quite a few quotes from this address relevant to my own proposed conference theme.
Denys explored some ideas that I've also used over the years when teaching CPD courses for the GA on fieldwork, local studies (heimatkunde) - which goes back to Keltie and Mackinder, and Physiography.
He also mentions Wooldridge who was a geologist turned geographer and had a great interest in fieldwork, which is something woven through the history of the GA.
He also refers directly to some of the themes that had occupied his time as President of the Association with regard to the well-being of the subject.
Denys told me some other things about his time at the GA.
Denys told me about his various involvement in the GA, which is very impressive.
1956-9 Student Member
1960-to date Member
1962-7 Assistant Conference officer. All conferences and the annual Conference were held at the London School of Economics
1968. Published Dartmoor in the 'Geography through Maps' Series
1968-74 Honorary Conference Officer. Annual at LSE.
1968-74 Member Executive Committee.
1974-79 Member of Council.
1973-76 Member of the Organisation and Development Committee which re-organised the whole committee structure of the GA and much remains to this day. We also proposed the Council for British Geography (CoBRIG) and set up the new publications such as Primary Geography: Great movers in this period were Sheila Jones and Pat Cleverley.
1975-78 Representative on the Council for Environmental Education for the GA
1984-6. Vice-President
1986-7. President
1987-8 Senior Past-President
1988 GA representative on the Nature Conservation Working Party for Science at the Dept. Educ. Science.
Denys also organised the GA Consultation on the 'Future of Geography' with J. K. St Joseph, Minister for Education at the time.
I also asked Denys about his memories of other GA Presidents at the time.
The longest serving was probably Alice Garnett. She 'owned it". The most faithful supporters were Robert Steele and all the Presidents of that time.
The most influential 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.
Denys also pointed out the particular influence that King's College, London has had on the development of the GA, in the same way as other key institutions which have kept cropping up through the last century or so that I have been blogging about. Those include LSE, Oxford University, Aberystwyth University, Manchester University and Sheffield University amongst others.
Denys told me:
You should mention the important role of the KCL/LSE contribution during the 1950-1990 period. The annual conferences were always held at LSE.
The successive members of staff who did the work of organising conference included the following people, who I will try to find out more about.
Tom Elkins - Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex
Jim Bird
Peter O'Dell (or Odell)
Denys Brunsden
David Jones
Barrie Morgan - strongly linked to King's College, London
A massive un-recognised contribution. Something for me to pursue further.
We also all served on the lecture circuit, all of the academics (all universities) lectured to the branches and to school conferences. The link to Universities at that time was very strong.
Sheila Jones told me of the importance of the GA conference organiser in her messages to me, and mentioned that Denys helped organise her own conference.
Denys also got involved in the production of a Channel 4 TV series called Landshapes, which I remember using when I first started teaching as I had the series on video. It also included Rita Gardner - Director of the RGS-IBG, David Jones and Professor Andrew Goudie.
It was presented by Tim Preece.
It was made in 1988.
A series of seven programmes looking at the geomorphology of Britain and Ireland.
Part 1: The stiperstones of Shropshire, which are representative of some of the most ancient rocks found in the British Isles. Part 2: The landscape created since the last Ice Age, concentrating mainly on Norfolk where the sands and gravels represent some of the youngest and weakest rocks of the British Isles. Part 3: How the ice sheet influences land shapes in the mountainous regions of Britain, showing the glacial cradles of North Wales and the rivers estuaries of Ireland and Cornwall. Part 4: The landscapes created by the melting waters of the Ice Age. Shows some spectacular scenery such as Devil’s Dyke, Cheddar Gorge and the waterfalls of Teeside. Part 5: The erosion of the coastline caused by the sea undermining the soft rocks. Concentrates on southern and eastern England where land is being reclaimed by the sea. Part 6: Because the British Isles lie on the edge of one of the earth’s plates, the 10,000 miles of coastline are very varied. The shoreline is shaped by the constant battle between the waves and the rocks. Part 7: The effects of man’s actions on the landscape since his earliest ancestors used ‘slash and burn’ techniques to clear the ancient forests. Soil erosion caused by agriculture in places where the forest was completely felled created the wetland landscape. Human activity has thus changed the landscape sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
The episodes in bold are ones I remember using in my teaching. The music was very memorable as well.
References Denys doesn't have a Wikipedia page, although he certainly deserves to have one. More recent GA Presidents don't have pages yet, perhaps that will be a follow up to this project.
http://www.bridportlife.co.uk/people/denys-brunsden/ - this has a range of fascinating information on Denys from his own words, including the fact his son plays bass in 'Hothouse Flowers'.... also goes into more detail on his work on the Jurassic Coast.
"Education is key; if people understand what they’re observing then they respect it, and from respect comes a sense of ownership, a stake in something which then has a far better chance of being looked after and conserved for the future."
Denys has written and contributed to a great many books, papers and articles.
I have a copy of this particular guide book of the Jurassic Coast he was involved in creating.
Denys also worked on a number of projects with another former GA President Andrew Goudie, who will be featured on the blog in a few weeks' time. He wrote an Atlas of the Environment of the UK with Andrew.
As always, if anyone has further information relating to Denys Brunsden please let me know so that I can expand on this post. Top image: provided by Denys Brunsden, taken by Professor Jesse Walker of Louisiana State University
Update November 2020
Alan Kinder let me know that Denys first joined the GA in 1956, when Lord Nathan was the GA President - a very different era of Presidents to now.
A report on Deny's Conference was published in 'Geography' in 1988
Source:
Humphrys, Graham, et al. “Annual Report of The Geographical Association 1987.” Geography, vol. 73, no. 2, 1988, pp. 162–178. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571395. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020.
Some tweets:
Today over lunch, I revealed to the legend that is Prof Denys Brunsden my favourite paper of all time; Geomorphic Thresholds by Stanley Schumm from 1979. I was then treated to fabulous stories of their friendship ☺️ So what’s ur fave paper?! 😀 https://t.co/0vkHy1tD3t
— Dr Anjana Khatwa - #NDA2020 Finalist 😊 ✊🏽 (@jurassicg1rl) January 21, 2020
Professor Denys Brunsden (Emeritus Professor, King’s College, London). He is one of the first Western scientists to witness the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Central Asia .
Black Ven and Spittles. The drawing shows the huge loss of land and cliffs and the position of the old roads and tracks that one time connected Lyme Regis and Charmouth. (Source Geographical Magazine Feb 1969 written by the then young Prof Denys Brunsden of Chideock) pic.twitter.com/l2UAjmN9tN
Today over lunch, I revealed to the legend that is Prof Denys Brunsden my favourite paper of all time; Geomorphic Thresholds by Stanley Schumm from 1979. I was then treated to fabulous stories of their friendship ☺️ So what’s ur fave paper?! 😀 https://t.co/0vkHy1tD3t
— Dr Anjana Khatwa 💙 #NDA2020 Finalist 😊 ✊🏽 (@jurassicg1rl) January 21, 2020
“He was a very kind and considerate man who won the affection and respect of his many students. Self-effacing and modest he took a great interest in other people and was an inspiration to so many geographers.”
Bill Mead was a true gentleman and always a popular visitor to Solly St. with all the staff there, through to the time when I worked there, when I met him a few times.
He sadly died in 2014, just short of his 99th birthday - nearly a century of commitment to geography - quite a legacy left through the work of students he taught - a gift that all of us teachers can be justifiably proud of, and the many books and other written contributions.
Bill worked as Professor of Geography at UCL IOE - a place with which he was associated for decades, and which has many close associations with the GA.
I had the chance to talk to him during visits to Solly Street, and I know that for several of the staff at Solly Street he was very much their favourite visitor. He also attended conference regularly and can be seen on many of Bryan Ledgard's images from the time.
There was a celebration of his life at UCL in 2014, when a range of notable geographers, including Dr. Rita Gardner said a few words about his life and work, and how he had influenced so many others during a long and varied career. This provides a great deal of detail on his long and varied career and travels.
"He said that his love for geography came from his childhood walking and riding in a pony and trap through the lanes and fields of his homeland."
Here is an interview with Bill, which tells you a lot about his upbringing and interest in the subject... a wonderful insight, and well worth an hour of your time as he identifies some key points in his life, and influences. He was a particular lover of Scandinavia. He talks about his own teachers, including one who had been in the army and travelled the world.
Bill trained as a school teacher, training at the College of St Mark and St John in London, and it was this which he often referred to as his real calling and introduction to the subject.
As with many geographers of the time, he also served during the war.
Mead joined the Royal Air Force in autumn 1939 as a volunteer. In 1940 he was posted to Mount Hope, Hamilton, Ontario, in an administrative role. In 1943 he moved back to England working for the Royal Air Force Educational Service. He was demobilised in 1946.
I like this quote from the UCL biography linked to below, written by Hugh Clout:
'Lectures were delivered without notes, as the spirit moved...replete with references to poetry, music, plays, works of fiction and even restaurants'.
Like many other Presidents, he has an association with the London School of Economics.
He was a student at Aylesbury Grammar School, and was remembered fondly there also, including on the school's website. This was followed by a long career in academic geography, and a long connection with UCL.
He wrote a really lovely memoir of his school days in the 1920s and growing up above a shop in Aylesbury - see the end of the post for a link to a copy that can be borrowed on the Internet Archive.
Bill also wrote many pieces for a number of magazines, and reviewed books for the London Review of Books. In one review piece from 1982, he described geography in this way when reviewing three books.
For many people, geography remains the story of exploration. But there is more to it than that, as these three books attest. They present the geographer as the student of landscape, as the environmentalist and as the ideologist.
Also on time:
"although geographers are principally concerned with space they have traditionally taken time by the forelock – time as a dimension of space. Sidereal time moved some of the earliest practitioners of geography. A whole school of geographers has developed around the concept of time as a resource, a resource made coherent by the formal division of time by markers, be they seconds or centuries. Academically, geography spans a borderland. It is among those disciplines that operate between the sciences and the humanities, between the mathematicians and the word-spinners. Its practitioners appreciate the implications of George Steiner’s thesis that for the scientist ‘time and light lie before,’ while the humanist, working essentially with words, is ‘drawn backwards’ because language carries the past within it."
Here's a lovely memory from a former UCL Geographer
Head of the Geog Dept at UCL when I did my degree. Absolutely charming man. On one fieldtrip to the Chilterns he visited us riding on his horse!
Bill contributed pieces to 'Geography', such as a 1959 piece on Finland, published when he was Reader in Geography at UCL, along with several books on Scandinavian countries and memories of visits there.
He became Professor at UCL in 1961. Head of the Geography department in 1966, he retired in 1981. He received many academic honours, and became a fellow of the British Academy
Bill became GA President as he retired.
His Presidential Address was on the 'Discovery of Europe'
In his Presidential lecture he explored different ideas of Europe, referencing Percy Roxby (former GA President), the author Patrick Leigh Fermor amongst many others.
He ended by suggesting a possible collective noun for geographers, something which crops up from time to time. I have suggested the word confluence: when we flow together we are stronger.
Here's Bill's suggestion: a cordiality of geographers.
He also left funding for a travel fund after he died. Details are here on a page which also involves an image of Bill riding.
Alan Kinder tells me that he also left a legacy which allowed for Scandinavian Geographers to attend the GA Conference.
He has
achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has
enjoyed the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has
never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left
the world better than he found it;
Who has
always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life
was an inspiration;
Whose memory
a benediction.
And concludes:
Bill Mead was a superb geographer of the highest
international stature. And he was such
a kind, thoughtful, and generous man.
Through his scholarship and his humanity, he set high
standards to which we can only hope to aspire.
For these remarkable qualities that enriched the lives of
all of us.
We thank him and shall never forget him.
Some awards that Bill received: Fellow British Academy, London School of Economics (honorary), Royal Geography Society (honorary vice president 1981, Founder's medal), Norwegian Academy of Sciences (honorary), Finnish Academy of Sciences (honorary), Scottish Geography Society (Research medal), Swedish Geography Society (Wahlberg Gold medal, Fennia medal), Orders Lion (Finland) (Commander), White Rose (Finland), Polar Star (Sweden), Order Vasa (Sweden).
Bill was still involved with the GA even in later life. The minutes of the AGM at the GA Conference in 2009, which I attended and presented at, show that he was in attendance, and I remember talking to him as it was the first conference since I had joined the staff of the GA to lead on Secondary Curriculum Development. In this, he reflects others with similar service such as H J Fleure.
This PDF document by Hugh Clout contains a huge amount of detail on Bill Mead's life and is perhaps the main resource to refer to if you want to find out more about him:
Images: copyright Bryan Ledgard and Geographical Association, used with permission I would love to hear more memories of Bill Mead. I am sure that many people met him over the last forty years.
Updates October 2020
As part of the work on this entry, I bought a 2nd hand copy of Bill's 'Towards a commonplace geography' and this will feature in a few future posts as there is plenty of interest including an image taken at the GA's Centenary celebrations in 1993.
There will also be some further updates to this post as more memories of Bill arrive in my inbox.
Front cover of one of Bill's books:
Bill was also mentioned by Sheila Jones as an academic geographer who loved the GA and continued to come to conferences well after his career was over. She mentioned Michael Bradford as showing similar service.
Here's Bill at an AGM of the GA.
Image credit: Bryan Ledgard and the Geographical Association
"He was a lovely man and deeply loyal to the GA, turning up at annual conferences long after most academic geographers had become less involved, with a few notable exceptions such as Mike Bradford." - Richard Daugherty
Updated October 2020
Thanks to Brendan Conway for sending me this personal memory of Bill Mead:
Bill Mead was an expert on Finland and did a lot to promote links with the UK. He also had links with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies where a couple of my friends were studying. I seem to recall that his tenure at UCL was drawing to a close around that time I was starting my degree.
He gave the undergraduates a pep talk and I remember him telling us to 'know where places are' which sounded a bit obvious until he explained how most people (including, it must be admitted, most of us) 'have no idea that much of Finland is east of Istanbul'.
This was a small but influential incident, because it signalled to me the importance of challenging misconceptions. I've taken this approach throughout my teaching career, emphasising how ‘facts’ can be converted into more powerful geographical knowledge that has the capacity to transform the way we see the world.
His final article has now been published posthumously, edited by Hugh Clout
Another former President: Simon Catling, told me in a personal communication:
Bill Mead, an academic geographer, seemed ever present, thoughtful, kind and challenging into his 90s. I met him first on a visit from school to the RGS for a Monday night lecture in 1965; he sought out our school group and was most thoughtful and supportive, always interested in young and new geographers, a real friend to geographers.
He is missed.
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 Dick Lawton mentioned the influence of Roxby and other geographers including Clifford Darby and Bill Mead on his own academic career at the time.
He says they taught him not only about geography, but how to be a geographer...
