From the archive - Fleure to Mill 2 - Christmas 1933

Another letter from H J Fleure to Hugh Robert Mill. I love these old letters in the GA Archives. I plan to go up to Solly Street this coming summer to spend a day delving into someof the boxes that I didn't manage to get into last time I went, which is too long ago, and take lots more pictures. 

This was the era when Fleure was in Manchester rather than Aberystwyth, and he is sad that Mill is no longer chairing GA meetings, but says that:

 "the Association is now, I hope, on its feet and able to walk erect"

This was down to some financial prudence from W.A. Cadbury.

The death of T.W.Sowerbutts of the Manchester Geographical Society is also noted.

He finishes by noting the growth in people taking geography as a subject in examinations. A promising trend.

From the archive - Fleure to Mill

A letter from H J Fleure to Hugh Robert Mill, sent in 1932 thanking him for attending a gathering. The letterhead is interesting too.

Steve Brace on the value of fieldwork

Over the years Chief Executives of the GA have engaged with newspapers and had letters published at various time.

If you missed yesterday's Guardian (as I do out of term time), here's the letter from Steve Brace on the importance of fieldwork...

From the archive - letter to Fairgrieve

Occasional images taken in the GA archive.

This an image regarding a Geography Society set up at St. Marylebone Grammar School from 1946.

Read more about Fairgrieve here.

Keltie, Mill and de Rougemont and the Australian affair

A find in the GA archives from the papers of Hugh Robert Mill - correspondence with Leonard Huxley. It seems he and John Scott Keltie were drawn into a strange affair involving an apparent trip made to Australia which was reported in a magazine.

This website provides a little more detail on the controversy, which included an apparent sport called turtle riding.

De Rougemont’s story begins with his birth as Henri Louis Grin, in Switzerland in 1847. In 1875 Grin came to Australia where he bought the pearling cutter, Ada. The vessel was reported missing in 1877 and the wreck discovered several months later near Cooktown. But what had happened to Ada’s master? Grin’s story of survival was incredible: he made claims to have sailed 3000 miles as the sole survivor of an attack by Aborigines at Lacrosse Island.

After this incident Grin moved regularly, changing jobs and identities. He married and then deserted his wife, Eliza. He worked as a dishwasher, waiter and photographer. 

In New Zealand he resurfaced as a spiritualist before arriving in England in 1898. 

Emerging now as Louis de Rougemont, Grin reinvented himself and his story to a fascinated public. The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont as Told by Himself was published in 1899 and contained incredible tales of his adventures as a castaway in North-West and Central Australia.

De Rougemont’s book was an instant sensation – and caused a huge uproar. He began touring and giving lectures to scientific and exploration societies such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science where he was greeted with fascination and, of course, disbelief. 

De Rougemont refused to demonstrate the Aboriginal language skills he professed to have learnt and could not specify on a map where his adventures had taken place. Among the stories so vividly described in his book were tales of single-handedly fighting alligators, the devoted deeds of his Aboriginal wife Yamba and his horror of cannibal feasts. Of all of the fantastic stories included in de Rougemont’s ‘memoir’, however, the one that caused the biggest outcry by far was his claim to have ridden turtles – many believed this to be simply impossible.

There is more about him here. It sounds like a tale worth following up.

From the archive: T C Warrington to HRM in 1938

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

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

L J Jay was a former GA librarian.

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

Warrington to Mill about the GA.pdf from GeoBlogs

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

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

U.P is presumably United Provinces.

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

From the archive: J S Masterman in the Alps

I visited the archive in Solly Street last week and made some great discoveries.

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

L J Jay was a former GA librarian.

I came across a letter to Hugh Robert Mill from J S Masterman Esq. who was representing University College School at the first meeting of the GA in 1893.

As with several other early members, officers and Presidents of the GA, including Douglas Freshfield, they were involved with the Alpine Club.

This letter describes an ascent in the Alps. Masterman was staying in the Hotel Nesthorn in Lötschthal. This seems to have disappeared, as has the Schwarzegg Hut. This is in the area close to the Eiger and other classic peaks including the Jungfrau, which Masterman climbed. He also climbed the Finteraarhorn and the Schreckhorn - both impressive peaks with aretes and other glacial scenery. There is also description of glaciers and moraines.

Masterman climbing letter to HRM.pdf from GeoBlogs

The trip is not without issues, such as this problem on the way to Diablerets and Aigle.

The days before Gore Tex...

More memories of 'Jammy' Morris

Regular readers will know that I have had several posts with memories from those who were taught by Joseph Acton Morris' known to many as 'Jammy' (or Mr. Morris)
He was GA President in 1965, and was a teacher - a rare thing for a GA President.

Thanks to Jill Taylor for contacting me last week. She told me:

I am writing in response to the request for memories of Mr Morris. When my father, Arthur Kerry, retired, he started to write his memoirs, which we put into a book. I enclose this short account of a school trip involving a Mr Morris (I believe the correct one) in around 1930. (The given date of 1936 must be a misprint, as he was born in 1917.) As you can see, my father was not the most exemplary student, so I bear no responsibility for the account contained herein! 

Here's the image she sent me - click for full size. It describes a field trip to a farm at Filey on the East Yorkshire coast in 1930... 

I think most geography teachers have strong memories of residential field trips - some of which they daren't share for fear of legal action, or approbation... My lawyer has advised me not to mention that time in Gordale Scar when...

Rachel Mary Fleming

Updated October 2025

Another in a succession of women who gave a great deal to the Association was Rachel Fleming. She was a great support to H J Fleure when the library and GA Offices moved to Aberystwyth and was his Assistant.

She was mentioned in Fleure's own entry on the blog as someone who supported his work and kept the library running smoothly at a time of great demand for its contents.

She did however get involved in some problematic work which is detailed later in this entry.

Source:


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p_xfuY8CJ48C&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=%22marguerita+oughton%22+sheffield&source=bl&ots=xln_U09sEO&sig=ACfU3U0BVaFI8t74PC7xxPHMiijd8QoLyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbrsfys43pAhXKQEEAHeGlCCIQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Update - October 2025

I was contacted by Vas who had located a letter for sale on eBay which was part of Aberystwyth's history.

The letter for sale was shown on the post and is included below:

It was sent in April 1921 to a Miss D M A Dickinson, who was it seems teaching at Rugby School, but had presumably paid for herself and a colleague to go on a GA organised trip to Guernsey of some kind, and is advising her to book boats and rooms for the trip.

It's lovely to see the handwriting of someone from over 100 years ago.

There's also a useful entry about Rachel Fleming here.

Miss Fleming is well known among teachers for her skill in using folk tales to impart a general knowledge of history and geography to children.

This sounds interesting.

Assistant to Professor H.J. Fleure at Aberystwyth, Miss R.M. Fleming, who had conducted research on 'half-castes' in Britain

This sounds... inappropriate... to modern geographers for certain... and very problematic. The link with eugenics is particularly troubling.

A fuller story of that report and the resulting issues, as well as he public statements on the matter can be viewed here.

Aspinall, P. and Caballero, C. (2021) Rachel Fleming’s Anthropometric Study. The Mixed Museum.

Rachel Mary Fleming is one of the category of people who are often invisible even in institutional histories, one of those who do their work with quiet devotion.

Text from some source which has been added to the Wiki entry:

"The work of the Geographical Association is still expanding rapidly, and we are all, as usual, deeply indebted to Miss R. M. Fleming, who, though without any official connection with the College, gives endless time to students to help them with problems and difficulties. It is therefore a special pleasure to state that this has been a year of very marked personal success for Miss Fleming, whose work has so long merited greater recognition. Her papers to the British Association at Edinburgh have appeared, one in the  "Scottish Geographical Magazine " (Geography and Tradition), and one in "Man" (Sex and Growth Characters in delation to Race Study). 

The latter was the subject of an evening lecture by Miss Fleming at the Royal Anthropological Institute. 

In addition to this Miss Fleming's book, "Ancient Tales from Many Lands" (1922), has had a quite unusually good reception, and has sold very rapidly

I hope it may influence not only educational methods, but anthropological research as well. 

This book is still available in reprinted versions.

It was reviewed in 'Nature' in 1922 

Miss Fleming adds in an appendix three essays in which she expounds her philosophy of the use of the folk-tale in education and the principles of selection. If any further indication were needed of the thought, wide reading, and experience which have been laid under contribution in the making of this book, it would be afforded by these essays.

Finally Miss Fleming has been invited to become one of the Secretaries of Section H (Anthropology) of the British Association. 

She has been President of the local branch of the Geographical Association during the current session.

Other publications

"The new geography". Times Educational supplement, 1920 - would be interesting to find this...

Fleming, Rachel M. 1933 A Study of Growth and Development: Observations in Successive Years on the Same Children. With a statistical analysis by W. J. Martin. Report to the Medical Research Council. London: is Majesty’s Stationary Office, Code No. 45-5-90