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1 Address at the Annual General Meeting of the Society, Held on 16 June 1947 Author(s): The Lord Rennell Of Rodd Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 109, No. 4/6 (Apr. - Jun., 1947), pp Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: Accessed: 16/10/ :02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal.

2 The GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL Vol CIX Nos 4-6 < R.G.S. ~ April-June I947 ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the Society, held on I6 June I947, by the President THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD RENNELL OF RODD, K.B.E., A S IN PREVIOUS years, I begin my annual address by referring to certain grievous losses among the Fellows suffered by the Society. These have been particularly heavy in the sphere of academic geography. First and foremost was the death of Sir Halford Mackinder, who was a Vice-President from I and a member of your Council for several years. Sir Halford Mackinder was the first Reader in Geography at the University of Oxford and may, I think, be regarded as the founder of modern geographical studies. In his death, not only the Fellows of this Society but all concerned with geography and its relation to world problems have suffered an irreparable loss. Two other notable losses to geographical science during the past year have been Professor P. M. Roxby, who was the first Professor of Geography in the University of Liverpool, and Professor L. W. Lyde, for twenty-five years Professor of Geography in the University of London. To these must be added Brigadier H. St. J. L. Winterbotham, for many years a distinguished member of Council and a holder of the Victoria Medal for his inventiveness in developing new methods of ranging and survey in the I9I4-I9I8 war. He was for some years Chief of the Geographical Section of the General Staff, and subsequently Director-General of Ordnance Survey. Another past member of Council who died during the year was Mr. C. W. Hobley, Official Member of the Legislative Council of East Africa from I920 and an authority on the Bantu peoples. It is a pleasanter task to record that in the last Birthday Honours His Majesty was pleased to make awards to three officers of the Society. Our Honorary Treasurer, Lord Catto, becomes a Member of the Privy Council; our Foreign Secretary, Sir John Chancellor, receives the G.B.E.; and Mr. J. M. Wordie, Honorary Secretary, the C.B.E. for services to antarctic exploration. II C.B.

3 I62 The Society's premises are still, I regret to say, in a somewhat shabby state owing to the difficulties and cost of repairs; but a beginning has been made in outside re-decoration, and sundry works have also been done inside by the house staff. The most cordial thanks of the Society are again due to all the staff for their great and continuous work throughout the session which now comes to a close. The successful exhibition during the Christmas holidays on the history and technique of arctic travel, and the exhibition which has recently closed on the use of visual aids in teaching geography, have involved a tremendous amount of work by all those who helped to mount them but especially by the staff of the Society. We thought that the Polar Exhibition at Christmas had been an outstanding success when 604I Fellows and members of the public visited it. But these numbers were put completely in the shade by the more than I3,000 visitors to "The World in Focus" which, after remaining open for three weeks, closed on May 17. No less than 154 schools visited the exhibition as well as teachers and a number of foreign visitors. The new technique of visual aids in teaching, especially with pictorial and animated diagram films, has been a revelation to those unfamiliar with these developments. Your Council proposes to continue exhibitions as part of the regular activities of the Society; but the work involved and the growing complexity of mounting will make it impossible to arrange for exhibitions as ambitious as the last two quite as frequently as I had hoped. Nevertheless, we hope to arrange exhibitions of this sort about twice a year and in the intervals perhaps to mount smaller exhibitions. The Society's premises, in conformity with your Council's policy to utilize this building to the maximum advantage of geography as a whole, now houses, in addition to the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, the Institute of Navigation, formed, so to speak, under the Society's wing. The Institute has as its main aims to unite all those concerned with or interested in the science of Navigation, including navigators, teachers, and workers in research and industry and to promote close contact with similar institutions abroad. It is thus intended to continue the coordination of work in navigation which was brought about by the war. Another aspect of this policy of opening the Society's doors to all those working in geographical and related sciences has been the holding in your House during the past year of a number of official conferences, including the International Conference on North Atlantic Weather Ships, an International Conference on the distribution of the world's tin resources, and an International Conference on whaling and fisheries. In each case, His Majesty's Government have expressed considerable appreciation for the cooperation and hospitality accorded by the Council on your behalf to those attending these Conferences from many parts of the world. The policy of your Council in geographical matters continues on the lines to which I referred last year, namely, to cover all spheres of geography, in the field, in the academic world, and in the drawing office. I trust that you will agree that the names to be proposed in due course for election to your Council this year will adequately reflect the activities of the Society in these directions. It is a matter of great regret to us that our two Trustees, the Marquess of

4 Zetland and Lord Biddulph, have decided that they can no longer continue to hold these offices. We regret their departure but understand their reasons. In their place are proposed Field-Marshal Lord Chetwode and Sir Charles Arden-Close whose names are so well known to you that no comment from me is required. The Officers of the Council have pressed me to continue for a third year as President, which I do unwillingly owing to the lack of time at my disposal to devote to the Society. But I feel that the names of the Council which is shortly to be proposed to you for election justify me in continuing, since they include the names of many persons who will carry on the activities of the Society and relieve me of some of the work which I can find so little time to do. I trust that in putting forward this list I shall have the full support of Fellows when the time comes for the formal resolution to be proposed. I very much regret the continued delay in catching up the arrears in publication of the Journal. I think you know the difficulties as well as I do. As soon as we thought to see some improvement, a further set-back has taken place. It is not only aggravating to you to receive the 7ournal so long after the period to which it refers, but administratively awkward for the officers of the Society. In the Journal we are now trying to incorporate not only additional matter of current geographical interest but also academic news, notices of scholarships, and so on. I trust that those of you who are mainly interested in the academic side of geography will come to regard the Journal as an organ where such matters will regularly be announced and recorded. In the fields of research and exploration, the Society's activities have been greatly developed through the energies of the committees of Council to which, as I said last year, wider powers and responsibilities have now been delegated. In order to handle the extended work of the Society, the number of these committees dealing with finance, research, publications, and the library and map collections has been increased by the addition of a Survey Committee which will work in close cooperation with the new Institute of Navigation, and of a Polar Committee formed jointly with the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. The Research Committee, which also deals with expeditions, has been especially active. Your Council has accepted its recommendation to create a travelling Fellowship in geographical research. Grants have been made to expeditions working this summer in Iceland, in Jan Mayen Island, in British Columbia, and in Peru, as well as to research workers in the field in Great Britain. In response to a large number of requests from ex-service men that the Society's Diploma in Survey should be revived, the Survey Committee with the Instructor in Surveying have drawn up a syllabus for a new diploma open to all students of survey which will be regarded by the Colonial Office as a qualification for those wishing to enter the Colonial Survey Service as survey probationers. It is hoped to hold the first examination in the spring of next year. The remarkable revival of interest in exploration since the war, and especially in polar exploration, has fully justified the formation of the Joint I63

5 I64 Polar Research Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Wakehurst, whose chief concern has been the preparation, in association with Norwegian and Swedish scientists and with the scientific liaison officers of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, of preliminary plans for an expedition to western Queen Maud Land in the Antarctic. You will remember that last year I referred to the Geographical Magazine Trust Fund for geographical exploration and research. You should know that in the past year the Trustees of this fund, on the recommendation of the Research Committee and of Council, have voted?2000 towards the expenses of the antarctic expedition to which I have just referred, a further f25o towards the Oxford Expedition to Jan Mayen Island, and?500 towards the travelling Fellowship in geographical research. I am sure that you will appreciate this very generous contribution by the Geographical Magazine Company and the Trustees towards geographical exploration and research. As in previous years, the Society has been able to give considerable assistance in research matters to departments of His Majesty's Government, and our Map Room and Library, considerably enlarged through gifts and accessions, have been especially busy in dealing with inquiries from official and other sources. Owing to the general shortage of text-books and the recent large increase in the numbers of students and readers, the Library has been especially hard pressed. Some 5250 books were borrowed from the Library during the past year, compared with a previous figure of 4480, the weekly average being IOI books. The needs of many Fellows as regards copies available and the length of time they can be retained have, I know, not always been satisfied, but I hope that this situation will improve as new editions of standard works are produced. I mentioned a large increase in the number of geographical students. In this connection, your Council has been paying special attention to the question of careers for geographers and to encouraging the employment of geographers in the many fields where their training should enable them to be of special service. In the Colonial Empire, and especially in Africa, there is and will continue to be an appreciable demand for trained geographers, and representatives of the Society have recently been considering this matter with officials of the Colonial Office. The interests of the Society and the activities of geographers in general will find a focus this summer in the meetings of the Geographical Section of the British Association at Dundee, and it is a happy choice that Professor E. G. R. Taylor, our Victoria Medallist this afternoon, is President of the Geographical Section, and Mr. J. N. L. Baker, a Member of your Council, the Recorder of these meetings.