Paul Bishop commenced his life in universities at Macquarie University in the School of Earth Sciences. He graduated with First Class Honours in Physical Geography and then went on to complete a PhD in 1984. When I joined the Department of Geography at University of Sydney in 1985, it was a pleasure to meet Paul. He had an adjoining office with another tutor, Peter Cowell, and it was obvious that they both brought intellectual vigour and enthusiasm to physical geography. Together they had what Peter called self-indulgent fun engaging in philosophical questioning of many topics besides sharing a love for classical music. Sadly Paul recently died (age 72) and the lights that he shone on those he worked with have gone out; but he cannot be forgotten. Our deepest condolences to his partner, Geraldine Perriam.
His fertile brain and immense curiosity saw him pursue an array of intellectual endeavours that are quite stunning in both scope and impact. We jointly ran the lower Hunter field excursion for Geography 2 students before he left Sydney and it was then that I got to know him and appreciate his methodical and enthusiastic approach to organising work. He is someone you always learnt from, generously giving time to stimulate your thinking. This is evident in the way former students recognised his passion for landscape especially on field trips. The establishment of computer and GIS lab facilities at Sydney in the late 1980s owed much to Paul’s capacity to innovate. Peter Cowell recalls his somewhat unorthodox application of GIS in the way he digitised orientations of the long axes of pebbles extracted from ancient stream deposits to estimate palaeostream flow directions. This is one example of his many skills which were readily transposed into teaching. Paul Bishop moved from Sydney to Monash in 1989 before settling in Glasgow in 1998 where he became Professor of Physical Geography. However, he maintained his deep connections to geomorphic studies in Australia.
Paul’s field studies in the eastern highlands of NSW built on the work of others in association with colleagues such as Geoff Goldrick. This work focused on aspects of longevity of the landscape, the role of lithology in the evolution of rivers, and centrally the importance of denudation isostatic rebound within intraplate highlands. This passion for knowledge commenced during his PhD study. At the time of the International Geographical Congress in 1988, as editor of a special volume in Progress in Physical Geography (vol.12, no.2), I invited Paul to publish what he knew at the time. It was the lead paper and gave international readers a clear summary of the evolution of an intraplate highland belt. What is impressive is that over the next three decades he elaborated, modified, and developed the analysis based on new evidence from the field, an increased understanding of tectonic processes, and the application of new earth surface dating techniques. A more recent version of this work is summarised in a chapter in the book he co-edited with his good friend Brad Pillans on “Australian Landscapes” (Bishop and Goldrick, “Lithology and the evolution of bedrock rivers in post-orogenic settings: constraints from the high-elevation passive continental margin of SE Australia” The Geological Society London Special Publication, 346, 267-288, 2010).
Paul was fascinated with the history of geomorphology. This interest was very germane to his research into landscape evolution. In 2011 he published a chapter in The SAGE Handbook of Geomorphology (eds, Goudie and Gregory) on “Landscape Evolution and Tectonics”. By this stage of his career he was already accepted as an eminent scholar as well as scientist in this field and able to offer us a global view of the subject. This chapter expressed with great clarity the difficulties we face in answering major questions that underpinned the work of the greats of the discipline. He saw the need to tease out the detail of which geomorphic models are appropriate and in what settings. In this paper we also get to see how his own research contributes to explaining landscape longevity through an integration of tectonics, including isostatic rebound, and landscape response. Along the way the paper captures his optimistic view of the current situation where he argues we now have techniques (e.g. cosmogenic dating—he helped pioneer its application) and over-arching paradigms such as plate tectonics to refocus attention on landscape evolution. He was awarded the British Society of Geomorphology’s Wiley Award in 2007 for the best paper published in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (title “Long-term landscape evolution: linking tectonics and surface processes” (v 32, 329-365).
Field evidence was very important to Paul. In his first journal publication prepared as an undergraduate, he discussed ideas of Karl Popper’s principle of falsifiability and the irrefutability of the Davidian cycle of erosion (Professional Geographer 32, 310-15). Quite amazing to get your first paper on such an erudite topic yet it defined his pathway to critical thinking based on what he and colleagues observed in the field. It also shows in the other areas that occupied Paul’s active mind when he ventured with teams to Thailand and Cambodia using his geoscience background to assist in archaeological studies. He developed a fascination for the Thai language and its ancient pottery working to unravel signatures of environmental change with Dan Penny, Duncan Cook and others.
Recently, in association with Duncan Cook, he had been asking questions about history of sand dune mobilisation near Stockton. I suspect his long association with Peter Cowell and others in the coastal group at Sydney prompted a long-term interest in coastal issues. He wrote a short paper with Michael Hughes while at Sydney on coastal boulder deposits on the central coast (Geology 17, 544-47). He later extended his coastal interests to the western isles of Scotland. He shared many of his coastal ideas along the way with Peter Cowell. This is seen in their penetrating article on drainage network determinants of drowned embayed coastlines such as that in eastern Australia (Journal of Geology, 1997, 103, 685-697).
I am not familiar with Paul’s teaching and administrative roles in Glasgow. I know he enjoyed participating in national curriculum development as well as in university administration. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004. The University of Glasgow awarded Paul an Honorary Research Fellowship on retirement in 2016. He also became Emeritus Professor. An examination of his publication record while at Glasgow shows why he was held in such esteem as an earth scientist. He played a major role in the establishment and application in Scotland of geochronological tools used in Earth sciences leading him to contribute to a range of studies with colleagues. And all the while that fertile mind was exploring the history and geomorphic setting of water mills in Scotland relying on one of his favourite themes in river studies, that of knickpoints (e.g.in Area, 37, 443-445, 2005). This love of history continued in retirement helping to set up a local history group and securing funds for further research into the history of Scotland’s mills.
Now is the time to pay tribute to Paul Bishop; his insights and knowledge are permanently on the record and he will be greatly missed.
Bruce Thom
I wish to thank Peter Cowell and Duncan Cook for their assistance in preparing this obituary and to Geraldine and Martin Williams for information which I have drawn upon.