Geography Of Britain Research Articles

The teaching of geography in England and Wales. A personal view

The teaching of geography in England and Wales. A personal view

The Norman aggregation of estates and settlement in eleventh-century Nottinghamshire

The distribution of landed property in the Danelaw at the close of the Old English period, so far as our evidence goes, had by the process of time been thrown out of all relation to the ancient and natural agrarian divisions of the country, the vills. And it is just here that the work of the new Norman lords, as revealed by Domesday, is on the whole most obvious and beneficial. In restoring, if not in creating, a general correspondence between the unit of agrarian life and the unit of seigneurial organization, they had begun, twenty years after the conquest, a process which was to arrange the manorial geography of England on the lines most conducive to agricultural efficiency; a process which in an unconquered England could never have been attempted (Stenton 1910, pp. 62–3).

Geography and Population: Approaches and Applications

(partial) Spatial population accounting, P H Rees & A L Conve . Population geography at micro-scale: residential mobility and public policy, W A V Clark. Population geography and ageing, D T Rowland. Population geography and social provision, R M Prothero & W T S Gou d. Population geography in Britain, H R Jones. Population geography in France, D Noin. Population geography in the German Democratic Republic, E Weber. Population geography in Poland, A Jagielski. Population geography in India, G S Gosal. Population geography in Mexico, M T G de MacGregor. The Japanese approach to population geography, A Otomo. The Chinese approach to population geography, S Panshou. Population theory and policy in the Islamic World, M E-S Ghallab.

A reappraisal of the role of spatial science and statistical inference in geography in Britain

It is argued that recent criticisms of the tradition of spatial science in Anglo-American geography have been broadly correct. To overcome these criticisms it is suggested that spatial science requires much better theory and techniques to differentiate spatial process (which is argued to be the prime centre of interest) from structures of data arising from map pattern and spatial structure. This in turn leads to the conclusion that the preoccupation with statistical inference must be replaced by a wider concern with confirmatory (e.g. Bayesian) and exploratory modes of analysis. This, it is argued, can be achieved only by a recasting of geographical methodology to give a better understanding of spatial process. This in turn requires a reestablishment of the core of geographical enquiry as a social view of spatial science.

The Industrial Revolution and the Regional Geography of England: A Comment

Anyone who is familiar with John Langton's writings on English historical geography will have viewed his latest contribution to the field (Trans. 1984, pp. 145-167) with consummate interest and expectation. In the event such sentiments are well rewarded, for in 'The industrial revolution and the regional geography of England' we find a set of arguments which more than any previous contribution to the debate set out the innate justice of a geographical approach to understanding the complexities of the industrial transformation. Perhaps the one regret is that the paper will find no immediate audience amongst economic and social historians, for it is they as much as Langton's colleagues in geography who need to be convinced of the relevance here of geographical explanation. When an author adopts as broad a canvas as does Langton in this paper, it is inevitable that certain themes and concepts will be over-simply stated or applied-inevitable because of the need to maintain a continuous thread in the flow of arguments and inevitable in the way the writer's thoughts became so focused. Langton is the first to admit such failings when in his concluding paragraphs he states that he has been able only 'to sketch crude outlines in bold strokes' and that many assertions are 'baldly formulated'. The present commentary seeks to fill out a number of these crude outlines, and in doing so to examine their validity. It focuses on the final section of Langton's paper, that concerning the economic bases of regionalism. Here Langton argues that a key underpinning of regionalism in England lay in the essentially regional structure of the early industrial economy which in major part derived from the importance of waterway transport and, within that, the sparse and fragmented nature of the canal system. The pattern persisted until the dawn of the railway age when 'long-term processes of integration were set in motion', and when 'raw materials and products for the home market quickly began to flow over long distances and burst through the old regional barriers'.

OIL AND CHANGING CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITY IN BURRA ISLE, SHETLAND

At the beginning of the 1970's one of the most peripheral parts of the British Isles, by the end of the decade it could be argued that Shetland, because of oil, had become one of the most central places in the economic geography of Britain. This article describes some of the changes that have occured in the social and economic organisation of one Shetland community between 1971 and 1979.

Book review: Dennis, R. and Clout, H. 1980: A social geography of England and Wales. Oxford: Pergamon. vii+ 208 pp. £14.00 cloth (US $33.75), £5.95 paper (US $14.50)

Book review: Dennis, R. and Clout, H. 1980: A social geography of England and Wales. Oxford: Pergamon. vii+ 208 pp. £14.00 cloth (US $33.75), £5.95 paper (US $14.50)

A Social Geography of England and Wales

A Social Geography of England and Wales

Academic Geography in Britain: 1918-1946

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

Historical Geography in Britain, 1920-1980: Continuity and Change

Early use of the term 'historical geography'; the impact of the 'new geography' of the 1920s and 1930s; pattern versus process; the exploration of sources, 1940-60; unforeseen contributions; the quantitative revolution; the variety of ideologies; the future. I am not sure when the term 'historical geography' was first used. One early example comes from 1846 when it appeared in the title of Karl von Spruner's pioneer historical atlas.' In this context it implied concern with changes in political boundaries and with the varying extent of states and provinces; and this usage has continued among some people up to the present day. But before the end of the century the term was also used to indicate concern with the influence of geography upon history. In 1894 appeared what may possibly be the most remarkable book ever to include the term in its title--George Adam Smith's The historical geography of the Holy Land: it has run into twenty-five editions, with a reprint as recently as 1973.2 Other notions also found shelter under the umbrella of the term, but the two main ideas current by the early decades of this century were changing frontiers and geographical influences. This was the kind of historical geography I encountered when I went up to Cambridge in 1925 to read geography. I attended the classes of Mr B. L. Manning who had become a lecturer in Geography in 1921. That he was a young historian was nothing unusual. Geographers like P. M. Roxby, J. N. L. Baker and W. G. East started with degrees in history. Manning's heart, however, was in ecclesiastical history, and he resigned his post in 1930 to become a lecturer in the History Faculty. In the meantime, his lectures to us were of the kind that has been called 'an historian's historical geography'.3 We began with Ancient Greece, then went on to the Roman Empire and so to the Byzantine Empire. We continued with the territorial evolution of France, with feudal Germany, with the rise of Prussia, with the many states of Italy before 1870, with Spain and Portugal, and with the development of Muscovy into Russia. We then embarked upon the expansion of Europe overseas. Our reading at this time included E. A. Freeman's The historical geography of Europe (then in its third edition) which dealt with changing political boundaries. I recall hours spent in disentangling the various connotations of the name Burgundy-the kingdoms, the duchies, the county, the imperial Kreis or 'circle' of later times; little wonder that Freeman wrote: 'no name in geography has so often shifted its place and meaning'. An essential part of our equipment was an historical atlas, and so I acquired W. R. Shepherd's Historical atlas (also in its third edition). One book that made a great impact on us was Lucien Febvre's A geographical introduction to history which appeared in English in 1925.4 Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N.S. 8: 421-28 (1983) Printed in Great Britain This content downloaded from 157.55.39.17 on Wed, 31 Aug 2016 04:40:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Geography and Geomorphology: The Last Fifty Years

Largely by historical accident, geomorphology in Britain became detached from geology and located as it were by default in geography, the move occurring in the earlier part of the present century. Numbers of North American departments of geography, by contrast, abandoned the physical side altogether. Relations between physical and human geography in Britain appear to be friendly, but not especially constructive. The geomorphological establishment in Britain during the 1950s resisted the quantitative revolution; it appeared to be completely unaware of the network, geometric, and hydraulic revolutions. All three revolutions were effected in the U.S.A., the last two within geology; geology also contributed very strongly to the quantification of geomorphology. If geomorphology should be located within a single traditional discipline, that discipline ought surely to be geology; but discussions of disciplinary location have been largely by-passed by the general quantitative revolution of the natural sciences (and of part of the arts), by the growth of inter- disciplinary research, and by the knowledge explosion, the result of which is that traditional departments are now too small for what they must do. With the hydraulic revolution some 25 years in the past, we should be due for another sudden burst of change. One distinct possibility is that this will entail a drastic revision of our views on typical rates of denudation, and the views of some of us on climatic geomorphology. The pioneering work is already being done in Australia.

Book Review: A Social Geography of England and Wales by R. DENNis and H. CLOUT. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1980. pp. 208. £14.00 H/B; £5.95 P/B

Book Review: A Social Geography of England and Wales by R. DENNis and H. CLOUT. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1980. pp. 208. £14.00 H/B; £5.95 P/B

Scotland as the cradle of modern academic geography in Britain

Abstract Academic geography as it emerged and crystallised in Britain in the years before 1914 owed a great debt to Scotland. Focused on Edinburgh, a nucleus of men and women developed who were of fundamental importance in shaping and directing British geographical research and writing in the years after 1880. Factors contributing to the success and strength of the Scottish ‘circle’ include the tradition of practical geographical work in that country together with Edinburgh's role in the late nineteenth century as a centre for studies in the natural sciences. After its foundation in 1884, the Scottish Geographical Society played a vital role as the focus of the growing community of geographers in Scotland, setting an example through its work and publications to others involved in the discipline elsewhere in Britain and abroad.

A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND AND WALES: Edited by R. A. Dodgshon and R. A. Butlin

A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND AND WALES: Edited by R. A. Dodgshon and R. A. Butlin

An Historical Geography of England and Wales.

An Historical Geography of England and Wales.

A New Historical Geography of England before 1600. H. C. Darby

<i>A New Historical Geography of England before 1600</i>. H. C. Darby

A Word Geography of England

A Word Geography of England

A Word Geography of England

A Word Geography of England

A Word Geography of England. Harold Orton and Nathalia Wright. Pp. 302. London: Seminar Press, 1974

A Word Geography of England. Harold Orton and Nathalia Wright. Pp. 302. London: Seminar Press, 1974

Visit to some Information Organizations concerned with Physical Geography in Britain and France

Visit to some Information Organizations concerned with Physical Geography in Britain and France