Relaunching the Marion Newbigin Prize

We are delighted to announce that Patrick Nunn is this year’s winner of the re-launched Marion Newbigin Prize for his article entitled ‘First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland revealed in ancient stories’ (Nunn, 2022). This editorial explains the relaunch of the Marion Newbigin Prize (MNP), an award that has been made intermittently for over eighty years by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) in association with the Scottish Geographical Journal (SGJ) (for many years called the Scottish Geographical Magazine: SGM). It also outlines – for purposes of transparency – the process whereby the new Editorial Team, working together with the journal’s Editorial Board and acting on behalf of the RSGS Board,¹ has run this year’s MNP selection and envisages continuing to do so in future years.

History of the Marion Newbigin Prize

The first announcement of the MNP appears in the journal in 1937, in an item reporting on the business of the RSGS Council on 18 June of that year (Figure 1). It is related here that something called the ‘Newbigin Prize’ was to be created out of funds remaining from a subscription in memory of Marion Newbigin (1869–1934), a stalwart of the RSGS who had served as the editor of the SGM for over 30 years (Anon, 1934; Philo et al., 2022). The award was to be for ‘the best essay, suitable for publication in the Magazine,’ with a word limit not exceeding 7,000 words, through an ‘open competition’ to be assessed by an ‘adjudicator’ (or ‘adjudicators’) appointed by RSGS Council (Anon, 1937, pp. 270–271). Unlike how the MNP has operated in more recent years – and how we will operate it – the award was made before publication in the journal, which is why in the list of awardees provided below (Table 1) the year of award is a year or more before when the associated article appeared in print. Interestingly, there was a content stipulation: the article should be ‘on any subject relating to the geography of Scotland’ (p. 270). It was stated that the award be made annually, commencing in October 1938, and the implication, although not explicitly stated, is that the ‘winning’ article would be selected from ones submitted for publication during the year or so before the agreed date for deciding the award.

Figure 1. First announcement of the Newbigin Prize (Source: Anon, 1937, pp. 270–271).

Table 1. List of past Marion Newbigin Prize award-winning authors and their articles (Source: modified from https://www.rsgs.org/newbigin-prize, accessed 11/07/2023).

	Year of award	Awardee(s)	Article
1.	1938	Andrew C O’Dell	Andrew C. O'Dell (1939) A geographical examination of the development of Scottish railways: Newbigin memorial essay, 1938, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 55:3, 129-148. doi:10.1080/00369223908735116
2.	1939	Arthur Geddes	Arthur Geddes D. ès L. Ph.D (1938) The changing landscape of the Lothians, 1600–1800, as revealed by old estate plans, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 54:3, 129-143. doi:10.1080/14702543808555322
3.	1944	Catherine P Snodgrass	Catherine P. Snodgrass M.A. Ph.D. (1944) Recent population changes in Scotland, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 60:2, 33-38. doi:10.1080/14702544408553789
4.	1948	Isobel M L Robertson	Isobel M. L. Robertson (1949) The head-Dyke : A fundamental line in Scottish Geography: Newbigin prize essay, 1948, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 65:1, 6-19. doi:10.1080/00369224908735398
5.	1949	Andrew T A Learmonth	A. T. A. Learmonth (1950) The population of Skye, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 66:2, 77-103. doi:10.1080/00369225008735447
6.	1959	R Goodwin	R. Goodwin (1959) Some physical and social factors in the evolution of a mining landscape, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 75:1, 3-17. doi:10.1080/00369225908735735
7.	1960	Robert W Galloway	R. W. Galloway (1961) Solifluction in Scotland, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 77:2, 75-87. doi:10.1080/00369226108735827
8.	1961	J D W McQueen	J. D. W. McQueen (1961) Milk surpluses in Scotland, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 77:2, 93-105, doi:10.1080/00369226108735829
9.	1962	James B Cruickshank	James B. Cruickshank (1961) The Black Isle, Ross-Shire. A land use study, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 77:1, 3-14. doi:10.1080/00369226108735816
10.	1971	Eve M Soulsby	Eve M. Soulsby (1972) Changing sex ratios in the Scottish border counties, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 88:1, 5-18. doi:10.1080/00369227208736204
11.	1974	A MacGregor Hutcheson et al.	Hance D. Smith, Alexander Hogg & A. MacGregor Hutcheson (1976) Scotland and offshore oil: The developing impact, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 92:2, 75-91. doi:10.1080/00369227608736334
12.	1977	James A T Young	J. A. T. Young (1975) Ice wastage in glen Feshie, Inverness-shire, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 91:2, 91-101. doi:10.1080/00369227508736307
13.	1978	Huw R Jones	Huw R. Jones (1979) Modern emigration from Scotland to Canada, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 95:1, 4-12. doi:10.1080/00369227908736412
14.	1982	W H Keith Turner	W. H. K. Turner (1982) The development of flax-spinning mills in Scotland 1787–1840, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 98:1, 4-15. doi:10.1080/00369228208736510
15.	1991	Alex Gibson	A. Gibson (1990) Territorial continuity and the administrative division of Lochtayside, 1769, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 106:3, 174-185. doi:10.1080/00369229018736796
16.	1992	Colin K Ballantyne	Colin K. Ballantyne (1991) Holocene geomorphic activity in the Scottish Highlands, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 107:2, 84-98. doi:10.1080/00369229118736815
17	1993	J Sheail	John Sheail (1992) Opencast coal working and the perceived threat to agriculture in post-war Scotland, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 108:2, 104-112. doi:10.1080/00369229218736852
18	1994	Lindsey J McEwen	Lindsey J. McEwen (1993) The magnitude and frequency of extreme rainfall within north-east Scotland over an historical timespan, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 109:2, 75-86. doi:10.1080/00369229318736882
19	1995	Matthew R Bennett	Matthew R. Bennett (1994) Morphological evidence as a guide to deglaciation following the Loch Lomond Readvance: A review of research approaches and models, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 110:1, 24-32. doi:10.1080/00369229418736904
20	1996	Morag Bell	Morag Bell (1995) Edinburgh and empire. Geographical science and citizenship for a ‘new’ age, ca.1900, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 111:3, 139-149. doi:10.1080/00369229518736956
21.	1997	Fiona Smith	Fiona M. Smith (1996) Housing tenures in transformation: questioning geographies of ownership in eastern Germany, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 112:1, 3-10. doi:10.1080/00369229618736972
22.	1998	Nigel Thrift	Nigel Thrift (1997) Cities without modernity, cities with magic, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 113:3, 138-149. doi:10.1080/00369229718737007
23.	2000	John Briggs & Davis Mwamfupe	John Briggs & Davis Mwamfupe (1999) The changing nature of the peri-urban zone in Africa: Evidence from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, Scottish Geographical Journal, 115:4, 269-282. doi:10.1080/00369229918737070
24.	2002	Hamish Chevenix-Trench & Lorna J Philip	Hamish Chenevix-Trench & Lorna J. Philip (2001) Community and conservation land ownership in highland Scotland: A common focus in a changing context, Scottish Geographical Journal, 117:2, 139-156. doi:10.1080/00369220118737117
25.	2003	Caitriona ni Laoire	Caitríona Ní Laoire (2002) Discourses of nation among migrants from Northern Ireland: Irishness, Britishness and the spaces in-between, Scottish Geographical Journal, 118:3, 183-199. doi:10.1080/00369220218737146
26.	2004	William T S Gould & Robert I Woods	W.T.S. Gould & R.I. Woods (2003) Population geography and HIV/AIDS: The challenge of a ‘wholly exceptional disease’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 119:3, 265-281. doi:10.1080/00369220318737178
27.	2005	Hugh Clout & Iain Stevenson	Hugh Clout & Iain Stevenson (2004) Jules Sion, Alan Grant Ogilvie and the college des Ecossais in Montpellier: A network of geographers, Scottish Geographical Journal, 120:3, 181-198. doi:10.1080/00369220418737202
28.	2006	Emma Wainwright	Emma M. Wainwright (2005) Dundee's Jute mills and factories: Spaces of production, surveillance and discipline, Scottish Geographical Journal, 121:2, 121-140. doi:10.1080/00369220518737227
29.	2007	Sven Lukas & Douglas Benn	Sven Lukas & Douglas I. Benn (2006) Retreat dynamics of Younger Dryas glaciers in the far NW Scottish Highlands reconstructed from moraine sequences, Scottish Geographical Journal, 122:4, 308-325. doi:10.1080/14702540701235142

By 1947, there had been little change in these terms and conditions, the award still being designated for ‘best essay’ ‘on any subject relating to the geography of Scotland’ (Anon, 1947, p. 95), although by 1959 the subject focus had, curiously perhaps, dropped ‘geography’ in favour of solely ‘any subject relating to Scotland’ (Anon, 1959, p. 127). The amount for the monetary reward had also been upped to £20, but with the bronze medal explicitly abandoned. These specifications survived pretty much unchanged through into the 1980s, excepting an upping of the monetary value to £50 in the 1970s (Anon, 1976) and then to £100 in the 1980s (Anon, 1986). By 1986, however, more substantial changes were made, with the MNP now being reserved for ‘applicants who first graduated within three years prior to their application’ – it not being specified with which degree – and with a further clause indicating that ‘[i]t may be based on an academic dissertation or similar piece of work’ (p. 92) (which suggests a PhD thesis but could conceivably be a Masters or even Bachelors dissertation). Intriguingly, the theme for what was now called a ‘paper’ – arguably a more academic or ‘scientific’ designation – restricted to 5000 words in length ‘should be geographical and associated with the interests of Dr Newbigin, and need not be confined to a Scottish context’ (p. 92) The explicitly Scottish focus hence disappeared, potentially allowing award-winning articles to range far beyond Scotland, but with the implication that some awareness be held about Newbigin’s own ‘interests’ (which were extremely wide-ranging).

The three-year-from-degree-award rule evidently did not last long, since by the 1990s senior scholars, much further into their academic careers, were recipients. It is difficult to detect further changes in the MNP criteria from the journal website² for issues from the later-1980s. Searching the journal website using terms such as ‘Newbigin prize’ does not return anything for after the mid-1990s, which might be because by then the journal stopped carrying reports on RSGS official business where most details about the MNP had previously been lodged. Seemingly no dedicated editorials or notices reporting on the award appeared after the mid-1980s, and indeed the evidence is that the MNP fell into abeyance after 2007, notwithstanding a near-continuous run of awards being made from the early-1990s through to 2007. The 1986 criteria for the award still indicated that it would be for a paper ‘suitable for publication’ in the journal, suggesting that the award continued to be decided prior to publication even if the actual year of the award had now become consistently the one after publication. Possibly some slippage was starting to occur here in how, in practice, articles were being identified for the award, and the impression is that by the 2000s the MNP was indeed being awarded from the pool of papers already published the year earlier.

A list of MNP awardees is included on the RSGS website³ and is tabulated here (Table 1), with awards spanning from 1938 (O’Dell, 1939) to 2007 (Lukas & Benn, 2006). If the list is correct, the MNP has only been awarded on 29 occasions, with there being many years when it was not awarded, maybe due to oversight or perhaps because there was nothing adjudged to be of sufficient quality. Another possibility relates to the fact that – for most of the period, from the initial brief in 1937 through to at least the 1986 reset – submitting authors had to apply to be considered for the award, needing to send ‘applications’ for the prize, together with their essays or papers, to RSGS head office. The making of the award would hence necessarily have been dependent on there being ‘applicants’ for it. Many years might have seen issues of the journal carrying fantastic articles, but, if none of the authors had formally applied for the prize, then obviously no award could be made. That in itself is warrant for making the MNP a retrospective judgement on articles published in the journal during the previous year, cutting out any necessity for ‘applications’, the view taken by the current Editorial Team.

The list on the RSGS website does not indicate the specific articles for which the MNPs were awarded, and so we have tried to identify what those articles might be from the journal website. In most cases this task is easy, because there is a very obvious article by the awardee authors published in the year before the award or – when the award was made prior to publication – in the year or two after the award. In at least two cases, an article has its MNP prize-winning status clearly indicated in its title (O’Dell, 1939; Robertson, 1949: Figure 2), and on a few other occasions a postscript at the end of the article tells us the same thing. In a handful of cases, though, we are making an educated guess. The MNP has almost always gone to a sole author: indeed, there are only six instances of articles double or (in one case) multiple-authored being successful. All the authors here would probably identify a disciplinary connection of varying fidelity to ‘Geography’. There are a number of well-known and well-remembered authors who are either Scottish-born geographers or ones possessing lengthy associations with Scottish higher education establishments, such as, spanning the generations, Andrew O’Dell, Arthur Geddes, Huw Jones, Colin Ballantyne, John Briggs (writing with Davis Mwanfupe), and Douglas Benn (writing with Sven Lukas). There are also some names that might be less familiar to current readers, such as W.H. Keith Turner (but see Jones et al., 2023). A good few authors are not Scottish or institutionally based in Scotland – examples are Morag Bell, Nigel Thrift, Bill Gould and Robert Woods, and Hugh Clout and Iain Stevenson – and so, crucially, an obvious Scottish ‘base’ for the author has not been essential for award of the MNP. A number of recipients have been what are now termed ‘early career researchers’, not long into their careers, such as Fiona Smith, Lorna Philip (with Hamish Chevenix-Trench), Caitriona Ni Laoire, and Emma Wainwright. Alongside that aspect of diversity, there are only nine cases of an author – or, in one case, a co-author – whose first name would suggest a female identity, although it is pleasing to see that two of the earlier awardees (Catherine Snodgrass [in 1944] and Isobel Robertson [in 1948]: see Figure 2) were well-known Scottish women geographers (see their respective obituaries in the journal: Forbes, 1987; MacGregor, 1975). The awardee list is also overwhelmingly white.

Figure 2. Front pages of Newbigin Prize Essays (O’Dell, 1939; Robertson, 1949).

The regional settings for the vast majority of the articles are to be found in Scotland – 24 out of the total of 29, including one addressing migration from Scotland to Canada (Jones, 1979), one considering Edinburgh’s imperial connections (Bell, 1995), and another tracing Franco-Scottish networks of geographers (Clout & Stevenson, 2004) – which is entirely unsurprising given the long-running requirement that the article adopt a Scottish focus. The 1986 loosening of that requirement did not have an effect until articles on East German housing tenure (Smith, 1996) and on peri-urbanisation in Tanzania (Briggs & Mwanfupe, 1999). Only two articles have offered a more theoretical or wide-ranging, place-transcending, commentary (Thrift, 1997; Gould & Woods, 2003), and, on reflection, it is perhaps telling that articles with a more conceptual, reflective, reviewish or agenda-setting quality are almost non-existent in this listing. In conventional disciplinary terms, rather more articles have been orientated towards human geography (19 articles) rather than physical geography (7 articles), but with a few of those ‘human’ ones exhibiting concerns for environmental issues and with a smattering of the earlier offerings (3 articles) attempting a regional geography synthesis of physical and human features.

Terms and conditions for the relaunched Marion Newbigin Prize

Turning from the past to the future, the specifications for the relaunch of the MNP award, as agreed during liaisons between the Editorial Team, the Editorial Board and the Director of the RSGS, Mike Robinson, are as follows:

1. Basis for the award: It will not be an award for the ‘best’ article in the previous year’s issues of the journal, given that ‘best’ is such a subjective judgement, but rather is now framed as an award for an ‘outstanding contribution’ to the journal, to be followed by a suitable explainer (e.g. ‘to understanding the Scottish landscape’; ‘to developing geographical pedagogy’; ‘to bringing political theory into human geography’; etc.). It is potentially open to any contribution in the journal, provided that there is demonstrable research and/or scholarship underpinning the article in question, and it can potentially include any format or length of contribution. The latter means any of the different article ‘types’ identified in Philo et al. (2022) with the exception of Editorials and Obituaries, which means that extended Book Review Essays, Scottish Landforms or Locales Examples (SLaX or SLoX), History of Scottish Geography, Teaching Geography or Applied Geography contributions could all plausibly be considered if displaying conspicuous research and/or scholarly merits. Articles could be singly-, co- or multiple-authored, and in the latter cases two or more authors could share the prize.

2. Process for award: Circa Spring-time each year, Editorial Board Members will be invited to make one or more recommendations (with very short explainers) to the Editorial Team. The Editorial Team will then select the ‘winner’ from this overall pool of recommendations, but ensure – in an annual dedicated short editorial in the journal itself, as below – that the ‘winner’ and ‘runners-up’ are mentioned. We realise that lots of different recommendations might result – maybe as many recommendations as there are Board Members – but that is probably a good thing (alerting the Editorial Team to a range of views and preventing any groupthink amongst the four of us). The process that we are envisaging does ask that Board Members are keeping an eye on everything that is appearing in the journal, but we do not think this an unreasonable proposition (and, indeed, that premise was accepted by Board Members). Final approval of the award will be made by the RSGS Board, given that the award does ultimately remain a formal ‘acclamation’ from the RSGS recorded in its own annals (and noted on its website).

3. Ongoing monitoring of the award: It is agreed that there should be an ongoing monitoring of what sorts of articles (what subject-matters [e.g. human or physical geography?], what approaches, what methods, what regional foci, and so on) are recognised, as well as of the demographics and geographical locations of awardees. The object will be to ensure that there is no ‘bias’ over the years in any of these respects. This monitoring will be done jointly by the Editorial Team and the Editorial Board. It is probably politic that the award is never made to anyone from Team or Board (although Board Members should be at liberty to ‘commend’ articles by Team or Board members that might appear in the journal).

4. The award itself: The award is largely ‘symbolic’ with no material or monetary dimension, but awardees will receive a Certificate (from the SGJ/RSGS) and be invited to receive their award in person (or virtually) as part of other events held by the RSGS. It will be formally recorded on the RSGS website and acknowledged via journal/RSGS/Taylor & Francis (publisher) social media. Perhaps most useful for awardees will be the formal published acknowledgement of the award in a dedicated journal editorial such as this one.

The award of the Marion Newbigin Prize 2023

The award of the MNP for 2023 is based on careful consideration, as per Item 2 above, of articles published in the Scottish Geographical Journal during 2022 (in Volume 138, Issues 1&2 and 3&4). As indicated at the outset of our editorial, the MNP for 2023 indeed goes to Patrick Nunn for his article entitled ‘First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland revealed in ancient stories’ (Nunn, 2022). One detailed commentary from an Editorial Board member perfectly encapsulates the article’s merits:

I am nominating this article on the basis of originality, novelty and because I think it represents a fascinating interdisciplinary piece of work. The paper focuses on stories of coastal emergence and submergence drawn from historical sources but authenticated through science-derived models of coastal change. The stories are taken from historical chronicles, documenting oral traditions/narratives, and are interesting in and of themselves, but the author’s attempts to date the stories and validate them geologically render this work appealing for a broad audience across physical and cultural, and historical geography. I feel in terms of the approach adopted, but also the empirical evidence presented, the piece sets out an original contribution to our understanding of the changing Scottish landscape while setting in train further work unearthing and analysing more stories from the oral tradition that can be used in a more extensive study.

Another remark simply stated that ‘I thought this was a really innovative piece that was so fitting with the journal,’ while a further comment stated ‘[s]uch an exciting way to interface physical and human geography through a perspective at once scholarly and thought-provoking.’

One other article received more than one commendation: Katherine Stewart for her article entitled ‘Troubled transition? The relationship between Curriculum for Excellence [CfE] geography and Scottish undergraduate geography’ (Stewart, 2022). One reflection on this article was that:

This is an important piece which speaks directly to the future of our discipline. It identifies some clear challenges associated with CfE and provides some very clear recommendations on how these could be acted upon. I found it insightful and inspiring.

Another comment, rolling together Stewart (2022) with the article by Ian Selmes, Alastair McConnell and Jim Bruce entitled ‘The geography of geographical education in Scotland: who studies geography and why?’ (Selmes et al., 2022), notes that:

These are such important studies for us to understand what is going on in our discipline so that, although the piece isn’t advancing new ways of thinking about geography, it’s giving us a better understanding of what is happening in geography in Scotland.

Singular mentions were additionally made for four further articles (Hannah, 2022; Harrison, 2022; Philo, 2022; Philo & Vitaliev, 2022).

We hope that, with the conclusion of the MNP award process for 2023, we have now appropriately set the stage for a repeat of the process in 2024, for which of course contributions to both this issue (Issue 3&4) and its predecessor (Issue 1&2) in Volume 139 (2023) will be up for consideration. The Editorial Team offers sincere thanks to Editorial Board members for being so generous with their time and thought in relation to the process for 2023, as well as to Mike Robinson for his advice with respect to – and the RSGS Board for approving – this relaunch of the Marion Newbigin Prize award.

Notes

1 The RSGS Board replaced RGSG Council in 2014.

2 See https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rsgj20 (with a search function).

3 See https://www.rsgs.org/newbigin-prize.