Recollections of a Founder Member

As a member of the committee of London geographers that met at King's College on 8 February 1931 (Buchanan, 1954) and thus, a year or two later, a Founder Member of the Institute, I have been asked for some reminiscences of the early years. But I was not one of the early officers, nor did I keep a diary or journal, so I have nothing but fifty-year-old memories to fall back on; and unlike the writers of the Gospels, I have not the kind of memory that can recall, after many decades, the precise details of incidents or conversations that were not exactly crucial to my career. Moreover, the Presidential Address of the late R. Ogilvie Buchanan to the Institute in 1954, entitled 'The I.B.G.: retrospect and prospect', has effectively covered the origin and early development of the Institute, so that there is little left to record, other than perhaps one's impressions of the reactions of the younger members of the profession to the policies that were formulated and acted upon in the middle 1930s. The policy that concerned some of us more particularly was that relating to publicationwhich was, after all, the main reason for the Institute's foundation. As Buchanan noted (op. cit.) 'publication facilities lagged behind the growing demand. The Geographical Journal, despite its twelve issues a year, was able to spare little space for academic geography, which lay outside the sphere of competence or interest of its large lay membership'. And Geography naturally enough, whilst giving 'generous treatment to academic contributions' was concerned mainly with the interests of the school-teaching profession. The Council's decision to limit publication to monographs, so as to avoid direct competition with the Journal and Geography was, according to Buchanan, a sound one, which 'was never seriously questioned up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939'. There were, however, many in the lower ranks of University teaching who did question it, but who never had the opportunity of making their voices heard. The questioning was prompted by two things. The first, which was regarded as a serious affront to the dignity of British geography by the junior members, concerned Publication No. 3. That an Institute which had been founded to give its members the opportunity of getting their works into print should publish, as its second monograph, a work by a Frenchman (even though heavily subsidised by the University of London), was indeed a blow to their hopes and their self-esteem. The second was the refereeing, which was commented on adversely by Buchanan (op. cit.), who noted that four works had been declined before the first one was published, and that 'members were at a loss to comprehend the standards that were being demanded'. The Council later decreed that (i) it was not necessary that work should be fully mature or finally authoritative, and (ii) that referees should try to be helpfully critical. The present author submitted a monograph in 1933, which presumably was one of the four that were declined before Buchanan's 'Pastoral Industries of New Zealand' was accepted. It came back rejected, with not a word of explanation or comment. I learned later that the referee was a provincial Head of Department who knew nothing of the subject (how could he, since there was nothing published?), and who never published anything himself but 'disapproved of juvenile precocity!' Meanwhile, of course, the annual meetings of the Institute continued to listen to members' lectures-about half a dozen per meeting--only a few of which ever saw the light of day in print (two in the Scottish Geographical Magazine and two in the Geographical Review). But at last, in

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