Academic Geography in Britain: 1918-1946

Abstract

This is merely an essay based on one person's recollection. It is in no sense a comprehensive account. I am grateful to Dr R. E. Glasscock for his comments on the manuscript. Modern academic geography in Britain had its origin in 1887-8 when, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, lectureships were established at Oxford and Cambridge; and a new stage in its development began in 1918, after the First World War. During these intervening 30 years or so, the subject came to be taught in 14 universities and university colleges. We must not, however, think of such teaching in terms of our present-day departments with their honours schools, their substantial numbers of staff, and their research students. The early teaching was for certificates, diplomas and ordinary degrees, or it was supplementary to courses in other subjects such as commerce, geology and history. This was so even at University College London where L. W. Lyde had been appointed to a professorship in 1903, and where Capt. Alexander Maconochie, R.N., had been the first British professor of geography in 1833-6.1 Many people still continued to think of the subject as being concerned with capes and bays and with lists of imports and exports. The 'old' geography took a long time to die. The greatest single event which transformed this approach was the publication in 1905 of A. J. Herbertson's paper on 'The major natural regions'.2 When first read in the preceding year at the Royal Geographical Society it had evoked a chilly response, but it was not very long before many people came to believe that here was a logical and convenient way of describing the earth's surface by identifying areas each with 'a certain unity of configuration, climate and vegetation'. It was an idea that spread widely as the result of a variety of textbooks, many written by Herbertson himself. When he died in 1915 at the age of 50, he bequeathed a basis for the teaching of geography not only in schools but also in universities.3 Herbertson's classification was largely in terms of climatic regions, and it soon provoked debate about different methods of regional division. In 1916, for example, J. F. Unstead read a paper on another 'method of determining geographical regions'. It was followed by a discussion in which L. W. Lyde and P. M. Roxby took part, and this is well worth reading today because it indicates something of the ferment of these years, and shows how differences were developing even among the believers in the idea of the region.4 The War that was raging at the time generated an increasing interest in geography not as an academic discipline but as a subject of practical importance. In 1915 a Geographical Section was formed in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty to write geographical handbooks on various parts of the world. About seventy writers were involved together with over a dozen draughtsmen, and they produced more than 50 handbooks and manuals and also some 130 short geographical reports. Topographical description loomed large in the content of these. The Director of the Section was H. N. Dickson who had taken a science degree at Edinburgh before Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N.S. 8, 14-26 (1983) Printed in Great Britain This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Mon, 25 Jul 2016 05:08:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Academic geography in Britain: 1918-46 15 lecturing in physical geography at Oxford (from 1899) and becoming a professor of geography at Reading in 1906. Most of the staff were not professional geographers, but there were a few from the small band of university geographers: R. N. Rudmose Brown (Sheffield), O. J. R. Howarth (Oxford), John Macfarlane (Aberdeen) and 0. H. T. Rishbeth (Southampton). During these years, chairs of geography were established in 1917 at Liverpool and at Aberystwyth, and with the end of the war in 1918, the first honours schools were instituted at these two universities and also at Cambridge and at London. Here was a new beginning in the development of academic geography in Britain.5