The R. G. S. and British Exploration: A Review of Recent Trends

Abstract

The occasion of the XXth International Geographical Congress which is being held in London in July this year is an appropriate moment at which to review briefly the recent achievements of the Society as a patron and supporter of expedi? tions. It is better perhaps to say the achievements of the Society rather than the achievements of British Geography because it is a fact, lamented by some, that for the most part, geographers in British universities have played a relatively minor role in organizing or participating in the remarkably large number of scientific expedi? tions which have gone abroad from this country with the Society's support in recent years. In view of the Society*s history and traditions this is not as surprising as it may seem. The Society and 'Geography*, using the word in the modern sense of an independent academic discipline now studied and taught in almost all British uni? versities, have never been wholly synonymous. When the R.G.S. was founded in 1830, geography in relation to exploration covered a wide range of sciences. This breadth of scientific interest has been maintained over the years, embracing towards the end of the nineteenth century the modern concept of Geography which the Society itself did so much to foster. The Society's role as a patron and organizer of exploration in the broad sense, a role by which it is best known to the world at large, is inherent in the circumstances of its foundation. It grew after all out of a travellers* club, the Raleigh Club, and it is easy to see in the memoranda governing the foundation of the R.G.S. how the absorbing passion and the strong practical concern of its founders for informed and informing travel shaped its destiny. 'To accumulate ... such documents and materi? als as may convey the best information to persons intending to visit foreign coun? tries ... to secure specimens of such instruments as experience has shown to be most useful and best adapted to the compendious stock of the traveller.. . To prepare brief instructions for such as are setting out on their travels . .. to render pecuniary assistance to such travellers as may require it, in order to facilitate the attainment of some particular object of research,; these were paramount among the purposes of the founders of the R.G.S.