Last updated August 2023
Professor Stanley Henry Beaver was an academic geographer, who was particularly associated with the LSE and Keele University, as well as being a great supporter of the work of the GA.
A prolific author, he authored books on a wide range of topics, from Sand and Gravel, to more general human geographies of the world, and geomorphology.
He had a very long association with the GA, as did many Presidents of course, working with them for over 30 years before becoming President in a number of roles, and providing content for journals.
He was involved with
L Dudley Stamp's Land Utilisation Survey, and co-authored many of the reports that came out of that survey in the 1930s and beyond.
He also became involved in the
planning and delivery of the Annual Conference in 1933, after Dr. H J Wood stood down.
During the 1930s, the GA Conference actually moved around a lot more than it had previously, where it was mostly held at the LSE. The 1930s saw it in cities including Liverpool, Glasgow, Nottingham and Sheffield. In 1932, the conference was even planned to be overseas in Heidelburg, but political and currency problems meant it had to be cancelled.
He had an association with the RGS (as many other GA Presidents have) and the IBG.
When he left the LSE he was succeeded by Michael Wise: another former GA President.
He also co-wrote
a classic book with another GA President,
L Dudley Stamp called 'The British Isles' as part of the 'Regional Geography' series.
He was born in London in 1907, and went to UCL where he graduated with first class honours in Geography in 1928. He completed his Diploma in Education in 1929, and according to an obituary published in the Transactions of the IBG, was influenced by L. W. Lyde, who apparently regarded geography as:
"a body of knowledge coupled with an attitude of mind".
He worked at the LSE between 1929 and 1950, along with
L Dudley Stamp
For some time, I couldn't find a contemporary image of Stanley Beaver, but was fortunate to receive one from Dr. Philip Kivell which can be seen at the top of the blog post.
In 1962, he had a piece published in 'Geography' on the Le Play Society and their contribution to fieldwork.
By this time, he was Head of the Geography department at the
University of Keele. He stayed at Keele until his retirement in 1974 when he became Emeritus Professor.
In it, he references the work of
Patrick Geddes, who had
A. J. Herbertson as his assistant.
I am grateful to
Dr. Peter Knight for helping me get in touch with
Dr. Philip Kivell, who very kindly gave me a range of additional details on Professor Beaver's career and personal life.
What follows was provided very kindly by Dr. Kivell.
S.H.BEAVER 1907-1984
Stanley Henry Beaver was born in Willesden, North London in August 1907. He graduated from University College London in 1928 with first class honours in Geography having already been awarded the Morris Prize and a University Scholarship in Geology. His first academic post was at the London School of Economics, where a very productive period resulted in appointment as Ernest Cassel Reader in 1946. His major work at this time, together with L Dudley Stamp was “The British Isles: a geographic and economic survey” which went though many editions before and after the war and provided a geographical grounding for many thousands of students.
During the war he worked for Naval Intelligence and used his geographical training to produce a number of regional handbooks.
He was appointed as the founding professor of Geography at the new University College of North Staffordshire, subsequently Keele University, in 1950.
Here he built up the first new post- war Geography Department in the country, including being closely involved in the physical design of the building.
This included finding a home for millions of RAF air photographs taken over Europe during the war, and the establishment of a meteorological station on the campus.
Beaver could fairly be described as a traditional geographer, a product of an age that largely pre-dated the increasing specialization that reshaped the discipline from the 1960s.
Having said that, his interests and skills were enormously diverse. Most obviously he was a Human Geographer concerned with economic and regional matters, but his interests also ranged widely over transport geography, land use and dereliction and he was equally well informed about climate, meteorology, and mineral extraction. He was a practical academic, always interested in how environments and human processes worked and in this context he helped enormously to put “The Potteries” region on the map of public and academic awareness.
He was a superb and well organised teacher and was always in demand as a guest speaker by organisations across the country. From a student point of view he was extremely well respected but perhaps not the most approachable teacher. He belonged to an era when staff- student relations were more formal and respectful so the informality and student politics of the 1960s and 70s did not always sit easily with him.
He could appear austere and remote but those who experienced his excellent field excursions soon saw a more relaxed side of him and were perhaps party to his dry sense of humour, his love of puns and his stock of limericks. At heart he was kind and immensely supportive to his staff and colleagues.
Apart from his teaching and research Beaver played a very active role in numerous groups and committees. Some of these were tied up with the University and local region, but others were national or international. For many years he chaired Keele University Grounds Committee, responsible for the largest, and some would say, most attractive university campus in the country. It was not unknown for him to open his office window to berate students who were walking on the grass.
He was President of the Geographical Association, active in the RGS and in the founding of the IBG, the IGU and the Anglo-Polish seminars.
As Chair of the Geography Board of the CNAA he played a major role in promoting the new Polytechnic sector. Amongst all of this he found time to translate several important French texts into English.
During his quarter century at Keele Stanley lived on the campus with his wife Elsie, who also worked as curator in the departmental map library, and four children. He enjoyed his large garden which he said (tongue in cheek) lay astride the watersheds between the Trent, Severn and Weaver catchments. One of his enduring passions had been steam railways, about which he was enormously knowledgeable. When the locomotive Keele Hall was withdrawn from service in 1963 Stanley Beaver bought the nameplate and displayed it proudly in his new department. On numerous overseas travels he would manage to arrange a trip on the footplate of whatever local steam locomotive took his fancy.
Upon retirement he and Elsie bought a large house in Eccleshall , a few miles from the campus, where he continued to garden, to enjoy his stamp collection and to continue his involvement in local Staffordshire organisations, especially the CPRE. He and Elsie endowed separate funds for student prizes and for fieldwork in the local area.
Stanley Beaver was undoubtably one of the great geographers of his generation.
Professor Beaver died in 1984.
References
http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50006237/
Obituary: “Stanley Henry Beaver, 1907-1984.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 10, no. 4, 1985, pp. 504–506. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/621896
Beaver, S. H. “The Le Play Society and Field Work.” Geography, vol. 47, no. 3, 1962, pp. 225–240. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/40565418
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.
Article in Geography in 1978
BEAVER, S. (1978). Some Observations on the Climate and Weather of New Zealand. Geography, 63(1), 14-22. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from h
ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4056883
Patmore describes Beaver in this chapter.
A chapter in this book is here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9NSDx4DxfVcC&lpg=PA76&ots=uk5vMrcPG4&dq=stanley%20henry%20beaver%20geographer&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q&f=false
RGS Archives: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F46114 - I won't be able to visit the archive for a while, but there are quite a lot of papers
Updated - May 2020
A few updates to add following the posting.
There was a connection revealed between
Professor Beaver and another former GA President who will have his own entry in due course (sometime in 2021)
Bob Digby.
Bob told me that:
Bob apparently spent the £25 in the Keele University bookshop, buying geography textbooks from the time.
I also discovered another bit of information on Professor Beaver, from when he was a student at UCL in the 1920s. He was taught by
Lionel William Lyde, another high profile Geographer from the early part of the 20th century.
His wife Elsie Rogers was also a student at UCL, and her memories of Lyde's teaching were also featured in the same document.
Taken from UCL Geography Department Archives.
Keele University offers an Elsie Beaver Prize for the best undergraduate dissertation by final year student involving fieldwork in physical geography, so the connection to Beaver continues.
It seems that she worked in the Map Library at the University as Map Curator.
Beaver was also taught by
another former GA President: Edmund Garwood. More connections...
Source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7BQSBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA16&ots=qyoQUQmILd&dq=lyde%20geography%20definition&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false
- this link is to one of the many Biogeographical Studies, which are 'proper' versions of what I'm doing on this blog.
I also found his own entry, after all that, in the Biogeographical Studies series.
This included an image of him, and also details of his links with the GA, as well as a lot more detail.
Beaver was Honorary conference organiser from 1934-1949
and also declared an intention to visit every branch in Britain while President - something I hoped to do, but didn't quite manage it.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=R-48DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA130&ots=vx3Y5ASsYg&dq=lionel%20lyde%20UCL&pg=PA129#v=onepage&q=lionel%20lyde%20UCL&f=false
As always, if you have further information relating to this President please get in touch.
Thanks to Dr. Philip Kivell for the image of Professor Beaver used at the top of the blog and substantive text later on.
Thanks to Dr. Peter Knight for his assistance as well.
Updated March 2023
Mentioned on first page of J B Priestley's 'English Journey'.
Updated August 2023
This flagged up his involvement with Section E of the BAAS, which I have been investigating over the last few days and have found plenty of details in the Transactions of the IBG and elsewhere that show Beaver's substantial involvement in discussions around geography in schools and universities.
GA Obituary
Rodgers, H. B. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 70, no. 1, 1985, pp. 77–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40571501. Accessed 24 Aug. 2023.
Last updated August 2023
Abercrombie's legacy is also discussed in the new Short History of London by Simon Jenkins - a current read of mine.
