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".
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.
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