TES piece on GCSE Natural History

This TES piece includes some elements of the responses to the  consultation on the proposed subject content of the new GCSE Natural History from the RGS and the GA.

Steve Brace of the GA is quoted in the piece on some of the elements of the GA's response to the consultation.

These include concerns over the shortage of teachers who might teach the new specification, and the fieldwork elements of the course. The fieldwork may be difficult for some schools due to their location, but may also adversely affect the habitats that students are being asked to investigate.

PTI Geography Symposium - 9th-10th July

I have been sharing my thoughts from the first Geography Symposium organised by the PTI in association with the GA and the RGS (who hosted the event).

We had just heard Bill McGuire's bleak prognosis for our climate and I noticed this above the rear entrance door to the Ondaatje Theatre. This commemorates the work of Charles Close (who was also a GA President) who was in office as RGS President when the Society celebrated its centenary. We are preparing for the bicentenary of the RGS in 2030.

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.

PTI Geography Symposium - July 2026

News of an exciting joint event that's being organised jointly between the Prince's Teaching Institute, the RGS and the GA.

It's called the PTI Geography Symposium.

It will take place at the RGS on the 9th and 10th of July 2026.

The event's co-chair, the ebullient John Wilkinson - here he is introducing the event in his inimitable style.

It's great to see that my GA Presidential theme of "Everyday Geographies" is front and centre here.

More details:

Our first-ever Geography Symposium is designed to empower and inspire teachers to be advocates for their subject inside and outside of the classroom for a curriculum that is challenging, innovative and enriching for all learners.

Through academic talks, workshops and sharing of best practice, the Symposium will celebrate Geography, enrich and develop your knowledge and love of the subject, and motivate you to consider how to inspire your leaners through engagement, enjoyment and empowerment. 

In celebrating Geography's interdisciplinarity, this event captures how Geography's cross-curricular core can ignite learners’ enthusiasm across a diverse cross-section of subjects at schools and colleges. This Symposium will capture, cultivate and celebrate the zeitgeist.

Themes:

• Everyday Geographies
• Supra-curricular concept capture
• Fieldwork

Confirmed guest speakers include:

• Dr Olivia Taylor
• Professor Iain Stewart MBE
• Dr Jonathan Higham

Many more speakers and details to be announced...

Central London accommodation, meals (including a formal dinner on Thursday 9th July) and course materials are included in the course fee.

All details are here.

£100 discount for RGS members, so it's worth becoming a member just for that... and gain all the other benefits of membership.

Judith Mansell RIP

I heard the sad news today that Judith Mansell has passed away.

She was the first Education Officer of the Royal Geographical Society. She authored materials which are still available on the website to this day. She was involved in the creation of the Discovering Antarctica and Discovering the Arctic websites - the former was recently given a fresh relaunch at an event at the RGS.

She also worked on the Unlocking the Archives project - a major undertaking which received a large sum of National Lottery Funding.

She also helped with the creation of the Geography Ambassadors Scheme.

She was also a judge in the early years of the Young Geographer of the Year award, along with the tireless Rex Walford.

From the RGS News - 1999

She held the post from 1999 to 2010, working latterly with Steve Brace.

Prior to that she taught geography at Bishop's Hatfield Girls School for 11 years, having been educated at Harrow County Girls School.

She was on the project team for the Digital Learning for Key Stage 4 project which happened during the Action Plan for Geography, and was also a Trustee of the GA for some time. This was a joint project between the RGS and the GA and she was one of the people to work to support both organisations, something I think is really important at this time. She was also involved in the Young People's Geographies project in an advisory role, and contributed to the GA's journals as well, as well as TES.

She contributed to many conferences and CPD sessions during her time with both organisations, and also on committees of the AGI.

In Jeremy Krause's GA Presidential biography he talks about her contribution below:

Membership and Professional Development Committee (M&PD)
Prior to becoming Junior Vice President in 1999 I served as Hon Secretary to the GA’s M&PD Committee Chaired by Judy Mansell. This Committee no longer exists, but at this time it played the role described in its title. It carried overall responsibility for Membership and Professional Development activities such as Conference. It also held an overview of Local GA Branches. Each of these areas had a Hon Officer such as Paul McDermott for the GA’s Annual Conference. When it was decided to close down the Committee its activities moved either to Education Standing Committee (Education Group) or to paid staff at GA HQ.

She also wrote an obituary for David Wright - who contributed a great deal to Norfolk geography during his time at UEA.

From the GA Magazine, 2018 - talking about her work as the GA Branches Officer.

Update

Thanks to Claire Brown, who worked with Judy when she started out at the RGS. She says:

Judy was the Society's first Education Officer and the work that she started in that role has shaped our education programme today. Judy started our CPD programme for teachers, A Level study days, the first Young Geographer of the Year competition, and so much more.

An official RGS obituary of Judy is here.

And here's an appreciation of Judy by Steve Brace from the GA Magazine's Autumn 2025 issue.

Dudley Stamp and his influence

Dudley Stamp was the President of the GA in 1950, 75 years ago this year.

I posted previously about a display at the RGS of one of the 24 plaster relief models that was produced to be used for photographic plates in his 1951 book 'The Earth's Crust".

You can also watch a talk that George gave on the link here. Part of the 'Be Inspired' series. 

This post is a review of the talk linked to above, which is well worth watching.

• Admitted to KCL at the age of 15
• Active service with Royal Engineers during the War
• Masters in Geology at the time
• University of Rangoon

Geological advisor to oil company, and worked with Arthur Holmes in Burma - oil company later folded.

Had a knack for breaking down concepts and making them clear.

Worked with Longman for years, to produce books such as 'The World'.

Left to become Professor at LSE - not an academic researcher as such

Champion of geographer.

Prolific output "if you really believe in your own work, publish and be damned"

Land Utilisation Survey - first set out at GA Conference in 1929 (E. Field in Northamptonshire had done a smaller project)

Interest in land use was prompted by the survey in 1931. Led to him travelling all over the country. Hoped to produce a series of 3D models from photographic slides.

Gave many lectures and spoke at debates and appeared in the media.

Appeared on Desert Island Disks.

Saw incrasing geographical awareness as being of national importance.

Popularised geography - also through the 'New Naturalist' series. The final contribution was published posthumously.

Served as President of RGS from 1963-66 (the former being the year of my birth) and his portrait hangs in the East Staircase.

Models are in the RGS collections - made by Thomas Bayley. The talk goes back to their origins, some examples - many of which are in storage due to their fragility and the development of modelling itself.

Well worth a listen...

Dudley Stamp's 3D models

I was down at the Royal Geographical Society earlier in the week, and they had a display of Dudley Stamp related items including one of his plaster relief models. I'd seen these in storage when I had a tour of the Society's HQ about 6 months ago, and it was good to see some of them now out in one of the display cases near the Map Room. They are the best collection still existing.

The book with an image of the model.

An oblique view of the model. Thomas Bayley made this, and 23 others for use in photographic plates in Dudley Stamp's 1951 book 'The Earth's Crust'.

Vertical image of the model of the Peruvian landscape.

The models formed the basis of PhD research by George Tobin which is described here.

You can also watch a talk that George gave on the link here. Part of the 'Be Inspired' series.

More on this in a separate post...

Images: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license on Flickr.

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

1921: Halford Mackinder

I've been doing some reading to prepare for some work in my new role as VP: Education of the Royal Geographical Society.

I came across a speech by Halford MacKinder, delivered in the famous Map Room in 1921.

I was intrigued at the description of the GA as 'the dutiful daughter' of the RGS, asking for 'maternal help'.

This came at a time when the discipline was strong in universities, but not so much in schools.

This led to a report by John Scott Keltie.

I was interested that MacKinder was caned at school for drawing maps.... see below...

"About this time a step had been taken the significance of which was not at first recognized. Mr. Dickinson of Rugby had been using lantern slides in his classroom, and wanted to organize a system of exchanging slides between school and school. 

The Royal Geographical Society referred him to me, and at my invitation the first meeting of the Geographical Association was held at Christ Church, Oxford. Herbertson soon became Secretary of the Association, which under his auspices flourished, and began to publish a journal, the Geographical Teacher."

Source: Mackinder, Halford. “Geography as a Pivotal Subject in Education.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 57, no. 5, 1921, pp. 376–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1780845. Accessed 11 July 2024.

GA Conference 1982

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.

Here was the report from Conference Officer Barrie Morgan, published in 'Geography'

Annual Conference (Officer: Dr. Barrie S. Morgan)

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.

More to come on this...

Discount for GA members on GIS courses run by the RGS

A new GA member benefit. Another example of some closer working between the GA and the RGS.

There is now an opportunity for GA members to get a discount on GIS courses which are run by the Royal Geographical Society / ESRI UK.

If you ask many teachers what they want training in, they often say either fieldwork / NEAs or GIS. This has been the case for quite some time now. It's also important to say that the GIS skills acquired need to be introduced to students in a co-ordinated way, with progression from the Early Years up to 'A' level (and beyond). 

With that in mind, here are some forthcoming courses that you might want to explore. Perhaps get them booked in before the end of the academic year if you have a little bit of money left in your departmental budget.

One course is actually taking place today in Coventry. 

If you have a group of schools and would like to host an event, please get in touch with the Education team at the RGS-IBG. This is particularly the case if you are not in London - the team is always happy to travel for a suitable group of teachers.

25th September 2024 - London - Kensington - Digimap for Schools

8th October 2024 - London - Kensington - Getting Started with ArcGIS

9th October 2024 - London - Kensington - Going further with ArcGIS

24th October 2024 - University of Leeds - Getting started with ArcGIS

7th November - Exeter School - Going further with ArcGIS

Dates for 2025 will be released later in the year.

These courses are also accredited as counting towards the time evidence and allocation for those who are Chartered Geographers, or are thinking of applying to be a Chartered Geographer.

New role... new blog...

As you'll have perhaps seen from a post at the end of April, I'm going to be working as the Vice President: Education of the RGS from June. 

As with any major project that I get involved with, or new role, I've started a new blog. This will track my work over the coming years, and also publicise relevant RGS-IBG activity. 

When I started out on my GA Presidential journey,  I started a blog which now has over 850 posts on it, and includes a biography of every GA President to date as well as much more on the history of the Association and its activities.

No. 1 Kensington Gore is known as "the Home of Geography". 

I've taken that as the name for my new blog, as I'll be visiting more regularly than I have for a few years.

Lowther Lodge has been the home of the Royal Geographical Society for over 100 years. 

You can visit the new blog here. 

Please check back regularly over the months to come...

RGS 125th Anniversary Dinner - 1955

There was a strong representation of former GA Presidents at this event, held at the Dorchester Hotel - very posh.

In the speech that followed, the GA gets a mention, alongside the previous explorations and expeditions.

There is also a mention for recent Medallists, including Sir John Russell (another former GA President)

“The 125th Anniversary Dinner.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 121, no. 3, 1955, pp. 392–404. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1790929. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

Lantern Slides - a new eBook

Happy to announce the publication of this book! #NellekeTeughels @CultHIst_Kul #histed
available in open access https://t.co/ZfpUVkRKyG pic.twitter.com/NPXE4l9t1x

— Kaat Wils (@KaatWils) February 20, 2023

This can be downloaded from the site here.

The book mentions the research of Emily Hayes, who kindly contributed some ideas for my GA Presidents blog on the historical use of lantern slides by the RGS and the GA. The GA was founded to help share lantern slides.

She talks about the use of slides by Halford Mackinder, who remains a significant (if problematic) figure in the history of geographical thought:

One of the three case studies Hayes analyses to demonstrate the gradual engagement of the RGS with the lantern is the famous lecture ‘On the Scope and Methods of Geography’ given by a young Mackinder to the RGS in 1887. The geographer had been a key figure in the acceptance and employment of the lantern projector to promote geographical knowledge. In his presentation, in which images and text were synchronized, Mackinder demonstrated he was ready to fully embrace the technology. The debate on the use of lantern slides in geographical education saw Mackinder as one of the main supporters, who recognized the pedagogical potential of the technology to instruct children.

There is an interesting section which I hadn't read about before on how Halford Mackinder was asked by COVICS to produce some slides and lecture notes which became a series of illustrated books - the pictures being smaller versions of the slides used in the original lectures for the Colonial Office. This would doubtless be of interest to those concerned with de/colonising geography.

I need to spend a little more time reading this.

Source:

Mackinder, Halford J., ‘The Teaching of Geography from an Imperial Point of View, and the Use Which Could and Should be Made of Visual Instruction’, The Geographical Teacher, 6.30 (1911), 79–86.

Mackinder, Halford J., India. Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office(London: George Philip & Son, 1910).

Maddrell, Avril M. C., ‘Empire, Emigration and School Geography: Changing Discourses of Imperial Citizenship, 1880–1925’, Journal of Historical Geography 22.4 (1996), 381.

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.

Thought for the Day

Of the geographer....

"We shall expect him to cultivate the power of the eye till he has a true eye for country - a seeing eye; an eye that can see into the very heart and, through all the thronging details, single out the one essential quality; an eye which can not only observe but can make discoveries." 

Sir Francis Younghusband, 1920

1968: Professor Alice Garnett

Last updated August 2023

Alice Garnett was a Professor of Geography at the University of Sheffield.
She was the second British woman to hold the position of Professor of Geography and the first female President of the GA, and very much connected with its growth and influence.

I believe another of the first few female Professors of Geography may have been Joy Tivy, who is mentioned elsewhere on the blog, but there are a number of candidates it seems.

As Head of the Geography Department she rapidly expanded the department- with 401 students being taught in the department by 1967. She left a legacy of the next generation of geographers and one of the biggest departments in the University. She had previously joined the Geography department as far back as 1924. Hers was a life of geography.

She also held the position of Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society - another former President to have similar connections with the two organisations. There have been plenty of those mentioned on the blog as it has grown, but the connections have not been the same for a few decades which is a pity. Work for future GA Presidents to continue to pursue.

Alice Garnett's name appears on the GA's Annual Report in 'Geography' from around 1950 onwards, when she started to take a leading role, as the association moved to Sheffield, initially into Park Library before moving to Fulwood Road - a move that Alice was very much an integral part of organising and negotiating.

Ivor Goodson talked about this period:
The period following 1945 does seem to have been critical in geography's acceptance and consolidation within the university sector. Professor Alice Garnett explained in 1968 why this period was so important: 'Not until after the Second World War was it widely the case that departments were directed by geographers who had themselves received formal training in the discipline, by which time most of the initial marked differences and contrasts in subject personality had been blurred or obliterated'. At this point geography departments were established in most universities and the subject had a recognizable core of identity. 

Alice had also, significantly been Honorary Secretary of the GA for some years before taking over the Presidential role, and had also produced the Annual reports that were published in 'Geography', so she was a very important person within the Association for many years. 

She was particularly interested in the connection between school and academic geography.




She was mentioned by several former Presidents that I spoke to as being at the very heart of the GA at the time.

Her Presidential Address was called:
"Teaching Geography: some reflections"
and looked back on some of the previous legacies of the GA's work and what she hoped might happen next.

Prior to her taking up the Presidency, Alice had served as the Association's Honorary Secretary for twenty years: 1947-1967, following the retirement of the previous holder of the post, and continued to support the GA after her Presidential year, along with her colleague Professor David Linton. She helped provide a space for the Association's library and a great many other 'backroom' tasks.
During the war, the GA had the use of a room in the High School of Commerce at the University of Manchester, but Alice moved it to Sheffield University, and found a suitable space in the Park Branch Library on Duke Street.

They persuaded the Corporation of Sheffield to give the GA accommodation in a section of the Park Branch Library. In April 1950, the GA moved for the third time. A fund had been put together to celebrate the Jubilee, but as this fell in 1943 it was not felt appropriate, and the money was saved for the removal expenses. However, Alice Garnett and the other officers managed to arrange the move without touching this fund. Mrs. C. D. Mann, the Chief Clerk resigned at this time.

She also insisted on the value of, and reorganised support for Primary Geography.

She also negotiated favourable terms on the lease of 343 Fulwood Road in Sheffield, which became the home of the GA for many years. More on that to come later.

Alice Garnett’s enduring legacy to her department was her lobbying for a purpose built building for Geography which she achieved where the Geography annexe had been on Winter Street. The building which Geography still occupies was opened in 1970 by the then head of department Ron Waters. Terraced houses on Winter Street were demolished for the new Geography building which was integrated into Weston Park. This and other features including the hexagonal teaching rooms earned the building a Civic Trust commendation.
The building, as designed, contained a library, a map library, a physical research laboratory with a huge flume, aerial photograph analysis room and teaching rooms sufficient for all but the biggest first and second year lectures. It also had offices for academic staff, tutorial rooms, a workshop, photographic and cartographic suites.
Sheffield University Geography Department building in 1970

Source: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/about/history

I visited the Department several times during the early 1980s for talks and a few school-related events. I also visited several times more while working for the GA.

In 1954, Alice published a piece in 'Geography', following the previous year's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations, looking back, taking stock and looking forward. Part of this was to make the most of the GA's stable financial position to pay staff appropriately, so that they were paid in accordance with the work they were doing at HQ. She also wanted to support the Section Committees more, to help them complete the vital work they were doing (and continue to do) to support and push forward the work of the Association. At the time, they were paying their own travel expenses for attending meetings. She reflected on the need to build up a fund. At the time, mostly due to Alice's own persuasion, the GA was given free conference accommodation and also free offices and storage at the Park Library in Sheffield.
She talked about the importance of the 'giving' nature of the Association.



She finished by setting a challenge to the geographers / GA members of 1993.


She was also involved in the GA's role in supporting the development of teacher education. In 1962, for example, 'Geography' featured a piece that she had provided for the Advisory Council to the Ministry of Education on the nature of school teaching for 'average and below average children'. This involved the following GA members, who included teachers. I wonder whether any readers can tell me more about these colleagues.

It concluded as follows:



A piece by Rex Walford, published in 1993 mentioned Alice.
The article was about Mackinder, but included a quote and the follow up listed below:

 Can we now usefully ask of ourselves and of our somewhat fragmented discipline 'Whither the geography of today and tomorrow?' For surely on the answer to this question will depend decision-making regarding the educational value and popularity of our subject in schools and its role as a university discipline and in other institutions of higher education. 
As geographers today probe and strive to expand our frontiers further and further, would our answers now be too disparate to command attention? 

These were the last published words of Professor Alice Garnett (Garnett, 1987). 

She had spent most of her life, beyond her duties in the University of Sheffield, tirelessly working for the Geographical Association, notably serving it as Hon. Secretary in a key period of its life. She had been intimately concerned with the mid-century struggle to make geography an acceptable and widely-available subject in schools. 

A postscript was added by Jo Norcup in late May 2020
She told me that Alice had a sister called Olive Garnett, who was also a prolific geography author. Olive will have her own post on the blog.

Other memories of Professor Alice Garnett are welcome.


Source:
Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Garnett - her maiden name was Crow.

University of Sheffield page: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/alumni-old/history

Fleure, H. J., and H. M. Fleure. “Alice Garnett: Honorary Secretary 1947-67.” Geography, vol. 53, no. 1, 1968, pp. 93–95. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40566483.

GARNETT, ALICE. “Teaching Geography: Some Reflections.” Geography, vol. 54, no. 4, 1969, pp. 385–400. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567138

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8tdurY3CGNQC&lpg=PA97&ots=jiACAnc8q_&dq=pat%20bryan%20leicester%20geography&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q&f=false

Garnett, Alice. “LOOKING AHEAD AND TAKING STOCK.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 1, 1954, pp. 1–4. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564668

Garnett, Alice. “Memorandum on Geography Teaching.” Geography, vol. 47, no. 1, 1962, pp. 63–71. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565632

Updated November 2020
While researching Stan Gregory and early use of ICT, I came across this by Ron Johnston.

Source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kVtwDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA90&ots=AHT4_XIJ21&dq=Geographical%20ASsociation%20Package%20Exchange&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q&f=false

Obituary

Ellis, Ronald, and Arthur Hunt. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 74, no. 3, 1989, pp. 272–275. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571681. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020

Alice Garnett obituary.

Plenty more on her dedication to geography here...

I wonder where the painting might be now.

Updated August 2023

I then came across a few tweets suggesting that Alice Garnett was one of the first person to talk about the Urban Heat Island effect in work she carried out.

She also seems to have been one of the first people to use the term "heat shadow".

This blog post explores her book on climate in Sheffield. Written by Alex Stockham.

I found the first clue in the archives at the Central Library. In a book from 1956, Climate in Sheffield and its Region, there’s a study by Alice Garnett, a Professor of Geography at the University of Sheffield. It contains the earliest mention of a ‘rain shadow’ describing our city’s climate, the reason for its relative dryness in comparison to Manchester and the Peak. As it goes, air filled with moisture reaches a mountain range and gets buffered upwards. There’s less pressure and it’s colder the higher you go, so the water vapour condenses into a liquid as clouds. When the clouds get too heavy, it rains. On the other side of the mountain range, the air descends and warms up again. The water in the clouds evaporates, leaving a ‘shadow’ of rain where it should have fallen before the descent.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/department/about-department

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tRgrBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=%22Alice+Garnett%22+geography&source=bl&ots=UIiLPDITPt&sig=ACfU3U2Iv9Yc32l8GWK7XGmDuTWpkQIbVQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjW0O7kzNeAAxUXTkEAHSw_AUQ4RhDoAXoECBgQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Alice%20Garnett%22%20geography&f=false

1956: Lord Nathan of Churt

Last updated September 2023

The Right Honourable Lord Nathan of Churt, P. C., T. D., D. L., F. S. A. was another person of distinction to become GA President, and also another person who later became the President of the RGS as well (from 1958-1961)

My first role when writing this entry was to work out which of several Lord Nathans was the correct one, as there have been several, but this was fairly quickly established.

He was educated at St. Pauls School in London - as were several GA Presidents over the years.

Lord Nathan had a distinguished service in the First World War, serving in the London Regiment in Gallipoli, Egypt and France where he survived a severe head wound: one of several GA Presidents to have seen distinguished active service, including Dudley Stamp.

After the war he went into politics.

During the late 1950s, Lord Nathan was working on redrafting the constitution of the Association, and worked on some Statutes and Standing Orders which were eventually adopted by the GA. This sort of work is often going on in the background of the Association, without much fanfare, but there are many activitists and volunteers completing this work, and their work is vital. There are always people who are needed to assist with various roles within the Association.

His Presidential Address was on the theme of 'World Aviation and Geography'.
In it, he referenced the IGY and the development of exploration in Antarctica.



I'm sure he would have appreciated the development of drones and their use.

He also spoke at length about the importance of the Arctic and the movement of aircraft along the Polar circle routes - something which is now routine for trans-Atlantic flights and also for Qantas flights avoiding disturbances in the usual Rossby wave circulation.



He was still working tirelessly in his 70s in a number of roles, many of them voluntary.

He died in 1974 in Westminster Hospital, of which he had previously been the Chairman.

A busy and productive life, and with a lot of effort in the background of the Association.

References

Obituary: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1794751?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Kirwan, L. P. “Obituary: The Rt. Hon. Lord Nathan, P. C., T. D., D. L., F. S. A.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 129, no. 4, 1963, pp. 582–584. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1794751. - source of the image - used under fair use

NATHAN, LORD. “World Aviation and Geography: Address to The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 42, no. 1, 1957, pp. 1–12. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40563896.

If anyone knows more of Lord Nathan's contributions to the GA, please get in touch - I haven't been able to find a huge amount about him compared to some of his contemporaries.

1961: NATHAN, LORD. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE BUSINESS WORLD TO-DAY.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 109, no. 5059, 1961, pp. 516–526. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41369050.

A nice piece - worth reading - on the value of geography to the world of business and economics. A good comment from L Dudley Stamp

Last updated December 2021

Coincidentally came across an obituary for Lord Nathan, written by L Dudley Stamp.

Stamp, L. Dudley. “HARRY LOUIS NATHAN: FIRST LORD NATHAN OF CHURT.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 1, Geographical Association, 1964, pp. 57–58, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40565764.

This gave me his actual names for the first time.

Of his time as President, the obituary also mentions:

He was a solicitor, and also entered the Lords as a Liberal.

He seems to have given a lot of good advice.

He was a Government Minister of Civil Aviation 1946-1948.

Like several other GA Presidents he also became President of the Royal Geographical Society, and also hosted dinners of the Geographical Club (one of which I was recently invited to)

He also gets a mention in the book 'The Third Pole' - Mark Synnott with respect to climbing expeditions on Mount Everest in the 1960s by the Chinese.

It appears he died following complications from an emergency appendectomy - a couple of months before I was born.

Updated September 2023

Churt is a village in Surrey.

A report on an event at the Royal Society of Arts in 1961.

He mentions his Presidency of the GA at the start of the address - a few other quotes:

"I do not pretend to define 'Geography'. Molière 's Bourgeois gentilhomme was astonished to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life. In some respects, geography is rather like that. But to propound an acceptable definition is a formid able task even for those who are, unlike myself, professional geographers. My association with geography by virtue of office has, however, taught me something of the very great changes that have taken place in the conception of geography since my own schooldays. Life was simpler then ; in the words of E. C. Bentley : geography was about maps, biography about chaps. For years, for centuries, indeed since classical times, geography was almost exclusively descriptive. It consisted of the collection of facts about countries and peoples."

"By his training the geographer has acquired the habit of looking at problems in their all-round relations. The trained geographer is accustomed to analyse a landscape from the point of view of many branches of knowledge, and to approach problems from many different directions. Just as a geographer should be able to synthesize all the different elements of a landscape, so he is trained to balance all the factors in a problem and see it whole. It is this synoptic view of the geographer which is the heart of the matter. It is fundamental and vital to the effective planning of all commercial and industrial development."

Following the talk, there was an interesting question from someone who was there:

Fallen back on teaching....

Another point was made by Dudley Stamp.

"I feel that I cannot let this occasion pass without expressing thanks on behalf of the professional geographers for the very able way in which Lord Nathan (who has come to us as it were from outside with a very wide experience) has put before this gathering the crucial problems of the geographer and his position in the world. I stand before you as a Professor of Geography who has never had a lecture in geography, for the simple reason that it was not a subject of Honours standard in our universities at the time when I was at college. So I had to take my training in other subjects, and came into geography because of a very deep conviction that there is an important work to be done in the application of what we now know as geographical principles to world and everyday events. It is a very great joy to me to hear, after these years of struggle, that point of view being vindicated from the lips of one so eloquent and so eminent as our lecturer this evening. I would say this in reply to questions which have been put : geography is, as you have rightly said, Sir, a point of view, a training which I think the late Field Marshal Smuts would have called a 'holistic' training, which enables one to take a view which is the view of the whole, and in that sense we do try to take in all factors which are concerned. 

In a way I was delighted to hear of the five geographers from Cambridge who have taken jobs other than as geographers. I hope they will take the geographical point of view into their respective spheres, which is after all what we want. In the old days a man who got a degree in classics did not therefore get employment as a Greek or Latin scholar. He went into administration and showed us how to run the government, because of his background in a good discipline. We like to think of geography to-day as giving that broad point of view which is a real training in citizen ship. I feel, Sir, that you have put before us very eloquently indeed that real objective. Geography as a discipline in the university to-day fits its students for a very wide range of posts (not necessarily called geographers; probably in most cases."

NATHAN, LORD. “GEOGRAPHY AND THE BUSINESS WORLD TO-DAY.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 109, no. 5059, 1961, pp. 516–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41369050. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

Book plate here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/uofaspecialcollections/21858160421/in/photolist-ziwMyR-28ReKGv/

1954: Professor Sidney William Wooldridge, CBE FRS

Updated August 2023

Professor Wooldridge was the first Professor of Geography at King's College, University of London, where he stayed for many years. 

His name has already appeared on the blog ahead of his rise to the Presidency, having been associated with other Presidents in terms of publishing and other endeavours, and his name will reoccur with later Presidents too. He was also active in the fight against the suggestion of geography joining with Social Studies during the 1940s and keeping its own identity. There are other GA Presidents with links to King's College as well.

Some details here are taken from his Wikipedia entry - shared under CC license - we are getting close to the point where Wikipedia entries stop being provided for GA Presidents. Perhaps we need to contribute some more.

Sidney Wooldridge was born in Hornsey, North London in 1900, the younger son of a bank clerk. His early childhood was spent in Surrey, and his later schooling in North London, where he also took evening classes in geology. He read geology at King's College London (1918–1921), graduating with a first-class degree.

In the 1920s and 1930s Sidney Wooldridge lectured at King's on a combined geography and geology course with the London School of Economics (LSE).

In the Joint School of Geography, King's offered Geomorphology, Meteorology, Biogeography and the History of Geographical Discovery. During WWII this arrangement was disrupted by the evacuation of King's to Bristol requiring Wooldridge to teach human geography.

His conversion to geography complete, he became professor of geography at Birkbeck College, London in 1944, returning to King's in 1947 as its first professor of geography and remaining until his death in 1963.

He was described in a piece from the Royal Society as "the doyen of British geomorphologists and a great champion of field studies of all kinds".

 In 1954. as President of the Geographical Association, his subject was ‘The status of geography and the role of field work’. 
In his address he stressed the need for developing at an early stage ‘an eye for country’—i.e. the capacity to read and interpret a piece of country, an accomplishment distinct from mapreading in that the ground and not the map is the primary document. Only those who have seen him in action with a field class can fully appreciate his mastery of the power to impart this accomplishment.

On his skill as a teacher:
Wooldridge had remarkable qualities as a teacher. He had the capacity to transmit his enthusiasm for his subject and the gift of clear exposition. He had a pungency of phrase which delighted his audiences and at times he took pleasure in being as provocative as he could. 
He enjoyed lecturing and gave freely of his time to universities, to training colleges, to field centres and to the Working Men’s College, Camden Town, with which he was for many years closely associated. In the words of a colleague writing in The , ‘it was his passion to bring to young and old the joy that comes from discovering for one’s self some new fact of landscape history and from fitting it into a developing pattern of new scientific knowledge’

Here is the announcement of his new post in 'Geography' in 1947



In 1949, he published an article 'On taking the 'GE' out of 'Geography'. This explored the status of physical geography (something which is still an issue for some - I remember some comments that many of the resources on the GA website were skewed towards what might be called 'human' topics.)

He also referred to the talk that was going on about the merging of history and geography, and the development of 'Social Studies' (something which has certainly been the case in the USA and some other curricula as well)

There were a few quotes in the article which are useful.

"Geography has never been the science of man, it is the science of land, of the Earth's surface"

(Sauer and Leighly)

It was during this time that he became the President of the GA. He had already held posts on the Council and Executive and therefore joined a group of Presidents who had held a great many roles to support the Association.

Image courtesy of: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021
Used under Fair Use, another image is in Balchin's Centenary book.

Wooldridge was a founder-member of the Institute of British Geographers (1933) and was later IBG president (1949–50). He did not break completely with the RGS, serving on its council (1947–51). 
More details on Wooldridge are contained in an article on the early days of the IBG, linked to here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/622270?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents

The following two images are taken from this source:



The Presidential address can be read on JSTOR for free with a free account.
Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
He started his address by explaining while regional geography is the real geography, despite the various different views.



This quote is a famous one...


He talks about the emphasis being placed on research work carried out overseas compared to work carried out in the UK, and this idea of 'otherwhereitis' is an interesting one.



Wooldridge also chaired the Field Studies Council in 1952. This was known as the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies at the time, before it became the FSC. I attended a special event to mark the FSC's 75th anniversary just before Christmas 2019.

The 'Wooldridge and Linton Model' of landscape evolution was dependent on the identification of remnants of three widely developed erosion surfaces. It was influential at the time, and is included in a range of textbooks. Linton read several papers to the IBG as well.

Wooldridge also collaborated with fellow King's alumnus (and GA President) L Dudley Stamp. Wooldridge's interest lay in relating early human settlement and land use to the physical landscape. In 1951 Stamp at LSE and Wooldridge at King's jointly edited London Essays in Geography. He also wrote with another GA President, S. H. Beaver.

He was also a major influence on another president Denys Brunsden, a student at King's College.
He described him as "a monumental presence".

His conference was described in this piece here.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1038/175198a0.pdf



Like L Dudley Stamp, Wooldridge married a King's geography student. He was a keen golfer and cricketer, a lay preacher (converting later to the Church of England and an amateur operetta enthusiast - shades of Rex Walford here.

He continued to work after a stroke in 1954.
He was made a CBE in 1954.
In 1957 he received the Royal Geographical Society's Victoria Medal and in 1959 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He died in 1963, the year I was born.

In 1980 the Institute of British Geographers marked the fortieth anniversary of Structure, Surface and Drainage in South-East England by the publication of The Shaping of Southern England, a collection of papers which both emphasised the importance of the work, and showed how dated it had become. Fundamentally, the 'Wooldridge and Linton Model' was based on the view that the south-east region had been tectonically stable except for two brief periods, in the Upper Cretaceous and the mid-Tertiary. Subsequent work has shown that this view is far too simplistic, throwing much of the interpretation of cycles of landscape evolution into doubt.
(Source: Wikipedia)

He is quoted in this extract from a piece by Rex Walford (another GA President)

"'Go out into the field, for through the soles of your boots shall ye learn' . That somewhat simplistic dictum was often quoted to me in my school days, by a geography teacher ever eager for his pupils to have fieldwork experience. We clocked up the miles on field trips with missionary zeal, anxiously believing that virtue would accrue in large quantities if the hike was more than six miles and we came home raw-soled and properly exhausted. In a generation nurtured on the philosophy of the Le Play Society, inspired by the example of S. W. Wooldridge, and receptive to the outdoor exploits of the Baden-Powell organisations, field teaching and the development of an 'eye for country' became the Holy Grail for many geographers from the twenties to the sixties."
Rex Walford, 1984

Research is something that Sidney Wooldridge felt was particular important, and felt the association needed to both continue to support it, and be involved in it.

‘IF THE ASSOCIATION were to turn its back on research geography, there would indeed be small hope of engaging and retaining the interest and support of the university geographers’

(Wooldridge, 1955, p. 75)

References

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

1938 article: Wooldridge, S. W. “TOWN AND RURAL PLANNING. THE PHYSICAL FACTORS IN THE PROBLEM.” Geography, vol. 23, no. 2, 1938, pp. 90–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40561780.

A KEY REFERENCE:
Royal Society Biographical Memoirs publication:  https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1964.0021

On taking the 'Ge' out of 'Geography' - https://www.jstor.org/stable/40562793 (1949)

Stoddart, D. R. “Progress in Geography: The Record of the I. B. G.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 8, no. 1, 1983, pp. 1–13. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/622270 - source of the image above

Wooldridge, S. W. “Reflections on Regional Geography in Teaching and Research: Presidential Address.” Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), no. 16, 1950, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/621209
Wooldridge, S. W. “THE PHYSIQUE OF THE SOUTH WEST.” Geography, vol. 39, no. 4, 1954, pp. 231–242. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40564986

"The Status of Geography and the role of fieldwork" - Geography,. 40, p.73-83 (1955)

Image used under Fair Use from this Source

Bill Marsden
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/631169/mod_resource/content/1/geog_sk6_06t_5.pdf
Describes Wooldridge's concern about the divide between school and academic geography - an area also touched on by another President Andrew Goudie.

Wooldridge was to resurface as a key figure in the geography versus geographical education encounters of the post-war period. He was a trenchant peer critic. In 1950 he addressed the IBG and scorned the contentment of his audience with ‘agreeably titillating’ articles on subjects of minor interest which made ‘no claim whatsoever to scholarship’ (Stoddart, 1983, p. 5). To Wooldridge a firm physical basis was the sine qua non of a high quality geography. He claimed that the social/urban orientation of the subject was becoming too strong. Geography, he maintained, was about ‘place’ and not about ‘man’ (Graves, 1975, p. 56). On the educational front he abhorred the analogous post-war trends towards introducing social studies into the curriculum. These he blamed on geographical educationists. The tendencies threatened to take ‘the ge- out of geography’, as he put it (1949, pp. 9–18). Social studies would On Taking the Geography Out of Geographical Education Some Historical Pointers in Geography Page 7 of 15 ‘destroy the value of geography as an important medium of education’ asserted the Education Committee of the RGS (1950, p. 181), in a report reputedly the work of Wooldridge. Like Geikie, he argued that the priority in schools should be detailed fieldwork in the rural landscape, developing a ‘laboratory spirit and the careful, indeed minute study of limited areas’ (1955, p. 80)

Also a piece on the Britannica website:

According to a leading British geographer, Sidney William Wooldridge, in The Geographer as Scientist: Essays on the Scope and Nature of Geography (1956, reprinted 1969), regional geography aimed

to gather up the disparate strands of the systematic studies, the geographical aspects of other disciplines, into a coherent and focused unity, to see nature and nurture, physique and personality as closely related and interdependent elements in specific regions.

According to this view, all geographers—whatever their systematic interests in particular classes of phenomena—should be regional specialists who appreciate the full complexity of phenomena combinations.

His papers are held at King's College, London
https://kingscollections.org/catalogues/kclca/collection/w/10wo50-1

Image: 'The Spirit and Purpose of Geography' - pictured at Charney Manor Conference 2017 - image by Alan Parkinson shared under CC license

Update - from a piece on Marguerita Oughton - March 2020

In the early summer schools Miss Oughton played a more direct and personal part. The first, at Rhoose, Glamorgan, with Dr. Margaret Davies in 1952, was a vigorous introduction to course organization that left her with a conviction that there are few things that the Association can do for many of its members that are better worth while than the provision of practical courses in fieldwork and field teaching methods in our own countryside. This conviction was enhanced by the stimulating experience of assisting the late Professor Wooldridge at a summer school at Pulborough in the Sussex Weald in the following year. Of this I was to hear a good deal in my own home not many weeks later from Wooldridge himself. He confessed to being "much impressed by that young woman", who had obviously handled him, as she had handled any difficult members of the party, with firmness and sympathy, and had surprised him with what he called an "unfeminine capacity for administrative detail." It is not difficult to detect here a note of admiration and affection on Wooldridge5 s part that remained with him in some measure till his death.

Linton, David L. “Miss Marguerita Oughton: An Appreciation.” Geography, vol. 50, no. 2, 1965, pp. 172–176. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40565934. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Updated August 2023

Im not the first @kclgeography academic to focus on Kent. S W Wooldridge first professor of geography wrote on the Weald, Alice Coleman wrote a guide to east Kent. Obviously important connections between London and Kent, now as ever! pic.twitter.com/ZhMlck8fOS

— Phil Hubbard (@PhilHubbard1) October 7, 2022

Catherine Duigan’s tweet reminded me of records I have of my mother, with her cousin, on a Kings College London geography field trip in the mid 1930’s. It is a mixed class, probably some geology students as well, with probably lead by Wooldridge #fieldtrip pic.twitter.com/FGnRIhfFfI

— Gina Douglas (@Gina_Douglas) September 7, 2020

A link with Michael Wise (another former GA President):

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.