Disorderly Archives and Orderly Accounts: Reflections on the Occasion of Glasgow's Geographical Centenary

Figures & data

Figure 1. Landscape photograph from the Department's 1930 ‘Continental Excursion’

Figure 2. Group photograph from the Department's 1930 ‘Continental Excursion’

Table 1  . Geography department, Glasgow university, occasional papers 1–32

#1	Various, 1979, Problems of the Peripheral Regions of the E.E.C.: Proceedings of a Symposium held at Glasgow, 1978
#2	Gibb, A., Shearer, J.W. & Kennedy, D., 1980, Siggiei – a Maltese Casal
#3	Findlay, A. & Findlay, A., 1980, Migration Studies in Tunisia and Morocco
#4	Lowder, S., 1980, The Evolution and Identity of Urban Social Areas: The Case of Barcelona
#5	Rees, J. & Tivy, J., 1981, Vegetation Structure and Landscape Appearance – A Methodology
#6	Morrison, A., 1981, LINPOINT: A Program for Drawing Maps of Lines and Points: User Manual
#7	Abichou, H., Findlay, A., Findlay, A. & Paddison, R., 1981, The Socio-Professional Characteristics of the Residents of Central Tunis
#8	Oglethorpe, M., 1982, Maltese Development Issues
#9	Thompson, I.B., 1982, The Commercial Centre of Oran
#10	Dickinson, G., 1982, An Assessment of Pathway Damage and Management: The West Highland Way
#11	Morris, A., 1983, Afforestation Projects in Ecuador: Potential Land-Use Conflicts and their Resolution
#12	Findlay, A., Findlay, A. & Paddison, R., 1983, Patterns of Ethnicity and Class in Central Rabat
#13	Briggs, J., 1984, Peasant Farmers and Crop Choice: A Study of Agricultural Decision-Making in Central Sudan
#14	Cruickshank, A.B., 1984, The Lofoten Spawning Cod Industry: Remote Area Resources Development – A Model Under Threat
#15	Jowett, A.J., 1985, China: The Foodgrain Sector
#16	Paddison, R., 1985, Some Structural and Spatial Correlates of Modern Retailing in the Third World City
#17	Tait, D.A., 1985, Basic Landsat Image Processing – B.L.I.P.
#18	Briggs, J., 1986, Reduced Agricultural Price Support in West-Central Scotland: A Study of Possible Consequences
#19	Armstrong, A., 1987, Urban Control Campaigns in the Third World: The Case of Tanzania
#20	Findlay, A.M., 1987, The Development Implications of Skilled International Migration for Host and Sender Societies
#21	Jowett, A.J., 1987, Famine in the People's Republic of China
#22	Rogerson, R., Findlay, A.M. & Morris, A., 1987, The Geography of Quality of Life
#23	Moore, J.N., 1988, A Line of the Coast: The Development of Coastal Mapping and Hydrology in Scotland from 1540 to 1707
#24	Gibb, A., 1988, The Demographic Consequences of Rapid Industrial Growth: A Case Study of Glasgow 1801-1914 (also an Applied Population Research Unit paper: see main text)
#25	Morris, A.S., Dickinson, G. & Priestley, G., 1989, Land Use Change and Conflict in the Bay of Roses, Costa Brava
#26	Shearer, J.W., 1989, ‘AZIM’ A Basic Program for Computing and Plotting Oblique and Transverse Aspect Azimuthal Map Projections
#27	Briggs, J., 1989, Agriculture and Farmers' Choice of Crops in the Peri-Urban Zone of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
#28	Al-Najim, M. & Briggs, J., 1990, Overstocking in Somalia: A Study of the Carrying Capacity of Bay Region's Rangelands
#29	Morrison, A., 1993, User Manual for LINPOINT Version 3.4: A Packaged Program for Drawing Maps of Lines and Points
#31	K.I. Gordon, 1993, Fundamental Trigonometry and Geometry for Topographic Science: A Summary of Trigonometric Formulae and Proofs
#30	Forrest, D., n.d., The Development of a Frame-based Cartographic Design Expert System
#32	Moore, J.N., 1995, Glasgow Surveyors, 1719–1854: An Index

Figure 3. Front cover of Ronald Miller and Susan Luther-Davies (1968) Eday and Hoy: A Development Survey

Box 1 . Geography as taught at Glasgow in 1909–10 (from Philo with Lafferty, 2009)

This is the […] entry from the University Calendar laying down the Geography course to be delivered in the academic session 1909–10, and as subsequently summarised in the Senate and Court minutes:

VIII. Geography

This lectureship was instituted by the University Court in 1909.

Lecturer – 1909. H.G. Lyons, FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society]

Ordinary Class– The course of 75 lectures with supplementary tutorial instruction, treats of the subject generally, and qualifies for graduation in Arts. It falls into 3 main divisions, viz.– I. Mathematical Geog.; II Physical Geog. or Geomorphology; and III. Anthropogeography or Geography in relation to Man. Under the first head will be treated Map Projections, Cartography, Land Measurement, and Surveying; in the second division will be discussed Meteorology & Climatology, with Plant & Animal Distribution; and the third will be devoted to Economic and Commercial Geography on the one hand and to Political and Historical Geography on the other.

Advanced Class– In this class of 50 lectures the Lecturer will deal with (a) a typical geographical region, & (b) a special branch of geographical science, these being varied from year to year. In session 1909–10 [ie. the first ever running of the course] he proposes to take up under (a) the geography of arid regions, and under (b) Cartography, Land Measurement, and surveying, more exhaustively treated than in the general course. (UC 1909, SEN 10/51: 92)

This is a strange passage to read, at once disconcerting familiarly and yet in other ways quite unfamiliar. Let us think first about the main terms included here. ‘Physical Geography’ is explicitly named, for instance, a designation utterly commonplace for today's students, but some puzzlement might be felt by the implication that the term is interchangeable with that of ‘Geomorphology’, itself still an entirely familiar designation. That interchangeability is immediately belied, however, by the suggestion that the study of Physical Geography will include ‘Meteorology and Climate’, surely quite distinct from if related to Geomorphology, as well as the study of ‘Plant & Animal Distributions’. Meteorology and Climate continue to be acknowledged as crucial bases of Physical Geography, albeit it now being rare for them to be taught at any depth within present Geography programmes. Similarly, studying the distributions of flora and fauna, while now subsumed within and sometimes taught under the umbrella of ‘Biogeography’, ceases to have anything like the same prominence at the core of undergraduate programmes.

One might have expected a term like ‘Regional Geography’ to surface in thiscourse outline, given that from the early-1900s the region as the organising device for geographical studies was increasingly coming to the fore. That Lyons regarded the region as such a pivotal organising device is clear, even so, since the advanced class was supposed to deal with ‘a typical geographical region’, presumably meaning a given type of region – since in 1909 he proposed looking at ‘arid regions’, doubtless reflecting his own Egyptian experiences – rather than one particular world region supposedly typical of all regions.

Perhaps what is most obvious from this Calendar entry, though, is the emphasis upon the more technical or practical aspects of Geography. Given Lyons's own background, previously he had been Director-General of the Egyptian Survey Department, it is unsurprising that survey, both topographic and land ‘measuring’, was given such emphasis. […] Cartography was strongly to the fore as well, thus instituting an extremely strong thread of geographical education at Glasgow over the intervening years: namely, a concern for the interrelated skills of cartography, surveying and associated analytical techniques, all clustering under the now all-but-defunct heading of ‘Mathematical Geography’. Glasgow Geography has always possessed this particular association, arguably more so than virtually any other British Geography department of higher education, leading in Glasgow to the distinctive teaching (and research) contributions in what became known as ‘topographic science’ and, more recently, ‘geomatics’ (see R.M., 1967).

Figure 4. Examination Paper, 1910

Figure 5. Examination Paper (extract), 1911

Miller , R. and Luther-Davies , S. 1968 . Eday and Hoy: A Development Survey , Glasgow : Department of Geography, University of Glasgow .

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Philo , C. and Lafferty , A. 2009 . “ 100 years of Geography at the University of Glasgow ” . Available at http://www.ges.gla.ac.uk:443/centenary/history.php (also available as ms. from the authors)

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