Belloc and the Fens

Hilaire Belloc was GA President in 1915.

He wrote about the Fens - the location of my school - in a collection of over 30 essays called 'Hills and the Sea'. In it, he intersperses pieces on England with others from France, including places like Carcassonne and other locations around the world - a reminder of his travel literature which perhaps drew him to the attention of the GA Council who had the job of finding a new President.

The book was first published in 1906 and was critically acclaimed.

It can be accessed via Project Gutenberg.

It is called 'A Family of the Fens' and focusses on the drainage of the Fens and its ruinous cost.

In 'On Ely' he visits the Cathedral, passing through its doors.

He ends this piece by talking about the allure of getting to know Ely and that "no man lives in Ely for a year without beginning to write a book. I do not say that all are published, but I swear that all are begun."

He visits 'The Sea Wall of the Wash', crossing the Nene at Sutton Bridge and heading for the coast.

This takes him to a piece called 'Lynn': the town where I lived for some years and taught for twenty years. I can follow his walking route from the Ferry, up to the Customs House, and onwards to St. Margaret's Church. 

At Manea in the Fens he talks to a local person, and captures the conversation:

MYSELF: This land wanted draining, didn't it?

THE OTHER MAN: Ah!

MYSELF: It seems to be pretty well drained now.

THE OTHER MAN: Ugh!

MYSELF: I mean it seems dry enough.

THE OTHER MAN: It was drownded only last winter.

MYSELF: It looks to be good land.

THE OTHER MAN: It's lousy land; it's worth nowt.

MYSELF: Still, there are dark bits—black, you may say—and thereabouts it will be good.

THE OTHER MAN: That's where you're wrong; the lighter it is the better it is ... ah! that's where many of 'em go wrong. (Short silence.)

MYSELF: (cheerfully): A sort of loam?

THE OTHER MAN (calvinistically): Ugh!—sand!... (shaking his head). It blaws away with a blast of wind. (A longer silence.)

Here's a talk which goes into a great deal of further detail on Belloc's work and influence, from Chris Hare.

It's part of a Lottery Funded project. Belloc lived for most of his life at Kingsland in Shipley.

Sir (Henry) Clifford Darby

Clifford Darby was never a GA President, but he was associated with the GA in some ways, and was certainly a significant figure in British Geography.

He was present at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the GA's Cambridge Branch, as featured in a previous blog post.

This piece from the British Academy gives a detailed biography of his life and geographical achievements, which were many.
(PDF download)

He was able to gain a scholarship to Cambridge from his village in Wales where he was born in 1909. He lived in lodgings as he couldn't afford the college lodgings. His tutor was former GA President Alfred Steers.
He was also connected with several other former GA Presidents.

Early in his academic career, he was chosen to assist Frank Debenham with some research in Southern Africa. When he returned he used his experiences in his other work.
His dissertation was on the role of Fenland in English history. His early work was a little deterministic, but he reworked it later for a different emphasis on the changing landscape and the draining of the Fens. An area of personal interest given the location of my school in Ely. Not everyone at the University was as encouraging - I liked this story:

His supervisor was Bernard Manning - not the comedian.
He was involved in conversations between the GA and the Historical Association following a joint meeting on "the new historical geography" in 1932. He shared the Common Room with a range of interesting characters including M.R. James (who also wrote about East Anglia)
He also assisted George Philip in the production of their atlases.

During the Second World War, as shown above, he joined many other geographers in helping with the war effort.

In 1945, he took over from another former GA President Percy Maude Roxby at the University of Liverpool.
He took over from Alfred Steers on his retirement in 1966 at the University of Cambridge, having also spent time at UCL (an insitution with strong connections with many former GA Presidents)
He died in 1992.

Source:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Darby
https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/proceedings-british-academy/87/darby-henry-clifford-1909-1992/

Update: December 2020

In 2003, Chris Kington asked a number of former Presidents what had sparked their passion for geography. He lent me the letters and Dick Lawton mentioned the influence of Roxby and other geographers including Clifford Darby and Bill Mead on his own academic career at the time.

He says they taught him not only about geography, but how to be a geographer...