Last updated August 2023
Professor J R (John Riching) 'Jimmy' James was linked with the University of Sheffield, although he was born (as several other GA Presidents were) in County Durham
During this period, most Presidents were academic geographers or teacher educators, and had less written about them in other volumes and journals than some of the earlier Presidents. This means the entries are a little briefer at the moment. All extra contributions welcome.
Image taken from J R James' Wikipedia page (shared under Creative Commons)
He was also another GA President to have served in military intelligence during the Second World War. There is a book here probably on the various connections of former GA Presidents at this time.
He was awarded the OBE in 1956, and became a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1966.
He died in Sheffield in 1980 at the age of 67.
An obituary, written by Alice Garnett, was published in 'Geography; in 1981
“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 66, no. 1, 1981, pp. 66–69. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41414469. Accessed 19 June 2020.
An obituary, written by Alice Garnett, was published in 'Geography; in 1981
“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 66, no. 1, 1981, pp. 66–69. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41414469. Accessed 19 June 2020.
One legacy of his work in the city is the J R James Archive.
This is collection of almost 4,000 photographic slides left by James, showing major building projects across the country during the post-war period, was digitised and made available online by the University of Sheffield in 2014. This work was done by Alasdair Rae, whose work in mapping and data visualisation is well worth seeking out.
His legacy is also kept alive at the University through the J R James Prize:
The JR James award was founded in 1981 from funds subscribed in memory of the late Professor JR (Jimmy) James. The prize can be used by any student from the department to undertake travel and/or study in Britain or abroad. The spirit of the award, in line with Professor James’s beliefs, is that it should be used to enhance students’ experience, and to widen their horizons.
The J R James Archive is now available on Flickr, and I have previously made use of this for other projects, without realising that he was also a GA President at the time.
He is not alone as a GA President in having been connected with town planning and New Towns of course, as others like Abercrombie back in the day were influential in shaping the present day layout of London.
From the J R James Archive:
This website hosts the photos, maps, plans and images of the JR James archive, digitised in the summer of 2013 by Philip Brown and Joseph Carr - MPlan graduates of the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield (now the Department of Urban Studies and Planning). The project was funded by the University of Sheffield Alumni Fund and directed by Alasdair Rae, an academic in the Department of Urban Studies and Plannning.JR 'Jimmy' James was Professor of Town and Regional Planning at Sheffield for several years before his untimely death in 1980. Prior to that he was the Chief Planner at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. He left to the Department his large collection of fascinating planning-related photos, maps and plans spanning many decades. We have put them all online for all to enjoy. In the future, we hope to add to the collection by using photos from student field trips and site visits.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._James - John Richings were his forenames but he was known as "Jimmy"
I amended this entry to add his GA Presidency to it.
https://www.flickr.com/people/jrjamesarchive/ - Flickr archive of images - this is well worth looking at by all geographers as there are some fantastic images
“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 66, no. 3, 1981, pp. 241–244. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570396. Accessed 19 June 2020.
“The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 66, no. 3, 1981, pp. 241–244. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570396. Accessed 19 June 2020.
Image of Jimmy James from https://www.flickr.com/people/jrjamesarchive/
Article on the archive: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/culture/the-jr-james-archive-and-a-glimpse-of-post-war-town-planning/8670561.article
This piece by Steve Parnell reminds us of how things used to be:
Only 20 years ago, preparing a lecture started several months in advance. The lecturers visited the sites in person (imagine that!), took photographs and had these developed into slides. No Google Images to filch from, no leaving it until the night before, no last-minute improvisation unless the slides were inserted upside-down or back-to-front – which they occasionally were, sometimes deliberately, to test which students were still awake or could tell their Lautner from their Ellwood, their Palladio from their Adam, their Corb from their Mies.
On the images in the archive:
James’ main interest was obviously housing, but public space and civic life also seem to have been key concerns. Unsurprisingly, the city of Sheffield dominates: Meadowhall is documented under construction; Hyde Park towers over the centre like a fortified castle; Park Hill makes an unfetishised, unaestheticised appearance; there’s even a view from a helicopter on a heliport in Shirecliffe, which must have been far more glamorous than is portrayed. There are also hundreds of images of New Towns such as Stevenage, Harlow, Hook, Skelmersdale, Peterlee, Crawley, Cumbernauld, Runcorn and Milton Keynes, along with other utopian visions from Thamesmead to Port Sunlight, and the Garden Cities of Welwyn and Letchworth, all as they were imagined, under construction, and finally in use. These aren’t just photographs of the architecture, but also of books, plans, maps, statistics and charts, reinforcing the fact that you are looking at a cross-section of any number of lectures, as if James had dropped his carousel just before the lecture and quickly reinserted them randomly.
Another good piece on the archive here: https://timeline.com/england-brutalism-urban-housing-f7ba9158a08c
Willatts, E. C. “Planning and Geography in the Last Three Decades.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 137, no. 3, 1971, pp. 311–330. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1797269Article on the archive: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/culture/the-jr-james-archive-and-a-glimpse-of-post-war-town-planning/8670561.article
This piece by Steve Parnell reminds us of how things used to be:
Only 20 years ago, preparing a lecture started several months in advance. The lecturers visited the sites in person (imagine that!), took photographs and had these developed into slides. No Google Images to filch from, no leaving it until the night before, no last-minute improvisation unless the slides were inserted upside-down or back-to-front – which they occasionally were, sometimes deliberately, to test which students were still awake or could tell their Lautner from their Ellwood, their Palladio from their Adam, their Corb from their Mies.
On the images in the archive:
James’ main interest was obviously housing, but public space and civic life also seem to have been key concerns. Unsurprisingly, the city of Sheffield dominates: Meadowhall is documented under construction; Hyde Park towers over the centre like a fortified castle; Park Hill makes an unfetishised, unaestheticised appearance; there’s even a view from a helicopter on a heliport in Shirecliffe, which must have been far more glamorous than is portrayed. There are also hundreds of images of New Towns such as Stevenage, Harlow, Hook, Skelmersdale, Peterlee, Crawley, Cumbernauld, Runcorn and Milton Keynes, along with other utopian visions from Thamesmead to Port Sunlight, and the Garden Cities of Welwyn and Letchworth, all as they were imagined, under construction, and finally in use. These aren’t just photographs of the architecture, but also of books, plans, maps, statistics and charts, reinforcing the fact that you are looking at a cross-section of any number of lectures, as if James had dropped his carousel just before the lecture and quickly reinserted them randomly.
Another good piece on the archive here: https://timeline.com/england-brutalism-urban-housing-f7ba9158a08c
As we get closer to the present day I'm hoping that we may have more personal memories of former Presidents, and I am happy to accept those for adding into the entries as we approach the present day. If anyone has further details on J R James life and career please get in touch.
Park Hill Flats, from the J R James Archive
Park Hill Flats, from the J R James Archive
Updated November 2020
A piece on the archive in Architecture Review journal from 2014
Only 20 years ago, preparing a lecture started several months in advance. The lecturers visited the sites in person (imagine that!), took photographs and had these developed into slides. No Google Images to filch from, no leaving it until the night before, no last-minute improvisation unless the slides were inserted upside-down or back-to-front – which they occasionally were, sometimes deliberately, to test which students were still awake or could tell their Lautner from their Ellwood, their Palladio from their Adam, their Corb from their Mies.
Nearly 4,000 such slides belonging to the late John Richings James were recently rediscovered at the University of Sheffield’s department of Town and Regional Planning. James was a major figure in post-war planning. He worked for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government from 1949, rising to chief planner in 1961. He moved to the University of Sheffield in 1967, becoming the department’s first professor in 1970, a post he held until his retirement. He died in 1980 at the age of 67.
The slides then lay dormant until Alasdair Rae discovered them in his office when he started as a lecturer there in 2008. Rae finally found some money to pay recent graduates Joe Carr and Philip Brown to digitise them, and the result is an amazing resource on flickr which has achieved over 2 million views since its launch last summer.
The haul of slides is essentially a record of James’ years of town planning, from his time overseeing the development of New Towns in the 1950s to his teaching in the 1960s and ’70s. Organised into several albums, with captions attached by the diligent digitisers, the slides form a searchable history of post-war town planning. In our sanitised age of Photoshop, the amateur snapshot nature of these photos is half of their charm. They are variously under and overexposed, out of focus, uncomposed, and wonky, and some of their colours have shifted through the spectrum. Instagram could learn a thing or two from the collection.
The haul of slides is essentially a record of James’ years of town planning, from his time overseeing the development of New Towns in the 1950s to his teaching in the 1960s and ’70s. Organised into several albums, with captions attached by the diligent digitisers, the slides form a searchable history of post-war town planning. In our sanitised age of Photoshop, the amateur snapshot nature of these photos is half of their charm. They are variously under and overexposed, out of focus, uncomposed, and wonky, and some of their colours have shifted through the spectrum. Instagram could learn a thing or two from the collection.
