Obituaries
George Lowe (1924-2013)
George Lowe, mountaineer and former Society member, has died aged 89. Lowe was both a key member and also the last survivor of the 1953 British expedition that conquered Everest.
Arthur Bourne (19??-2013)
Arthur Bourne, a Long Serving Fellow and member of the Geographical Club, died on 23 February 2013 aged 83. A member of RGS supported expeditions in the 1950s, he was a strong and loyal supporter of the Society.
David Whitehouse (1941-2013)
David Whitehouse, who has died aged 71, was a Fellow of the Society, archaeologist and leading authority on Roman, Islamic and medieval glass; he served for 10 years as director of the British School in Rome (1974-1984) and subsequently as director of the Corning Museum of Glass in New York.
Dr Tony French (PDF) (1929-2012)
Dr Tony French (University College London), from the 1950s to the 1990s one of leading British scholars of the geography of Russia, died peacefully on 24 November 2012 following a long period of failing health. Recognition of his contributions are described by his colleague Professor Hugh Clout.
Sylvia Sikes (1925-2012)
Sylvia SIKES DPhil, FZSL, FRGS. Zoologist and authority on the African elephant died peacefully, aged 87, on 3 October 2012 in Newbury. Author of books including Lake Chad (1972) and The Natural History of the African Elephant (1971), one of the most comprehensive books on the African elephant.
Professor Bernie Smith (1951-2012)
Bernie was Chair in Tropical Geomorphology at Queen’s University Belfast from 1998. An inspiring teacher, highly valued colleague and expert on hot deserts and tropical landscapes, he leaves a significant legacy of research and publications that will influence the direction of future geographical research and the work of local conservation architects, the wider building conservation community in the UK, Europe and further afield, and UNESCO. He was an active member of the Society and of the British Society for Geomorphology.
Maryanne (nee Bankes) Chandor (1934-2012)
Maryanne (nee Bankes) Chandor, died peacefully on 1 November 2012. She was a Life Fellow of the Society and a former Managing Editor of The Geographical Journal.
Ronald John Davies (1931-2012)
Professor Ron Davies, who died on 13 September 2012, was an Honorary Corresponding Fellow of the Society. Born in Pretoria, he graduated at Rhodes University as MSc in 1954. Completing his PhD in London at LSE in 1961, he taught in the Durban division of the University of Natal until 1975 when he moved to Cape Town as Head of Geography. He was perhaps best known for his research on the urban system of South Africa and the apartheid city. He was an active member of the International Geographical Union and twice President of the South African Geographical Society.
Michael Horatio Westmacott (1925-2012)
Michael Westmacott, mountaineer, died on 20 June 2012. Westmacott was part of the 1953 Everest expedition and his main job was in the Khumbu Icefall: pioneering the route, keeping it open and, finally, descending it to send news home of the successful ascent. Westmacott was educated at Radley School and the University of Oxford. He climbed extensively in the UK and the Alps before 1953, and continued to do so afterwards, making first ascents in Peru, the Hindu Kush and northern Alaska. He was President of the Alpine Club and of the Climbers Club. Trained as a statistician, he worked in agricultural research and then in Shell International until retirement.
Rear Admiral Steve Ritchie (1914-2012)
Rear Admiral George Stephen Ritchie, renowned for his influence on hydrographic surveying and cartography, died on 8 May. Born in Burnley in 1914, he attended the Royal Navy College, Dartmouth, and joined the Surveying Service, later distinguishing himself during the Second World War. After commanding a number of survey ships, he became Hydrographer of the Navy from 1966 to 1971; and president of the International Hydrographic Bureau from 1972 to 1982. Founding President of the Hydrographic Society, Admiral Ritchie was awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder’s Medal in 1972 for ‘hydrographical charting and oceanographical exploration’.
Gaynor Asquith (1952-2011)
Housing specialist and conservationist Gaynor Asquith died on 12 November 2011, at the age of 59. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Gaynor championed community regeneration through housing and founded her own company, which later became part of arc4. In order to bring her skills to another part of the world, she also co-founded Project African Wilderness to help restore Mwabvi Wildlife Reserve in Malawi.
Michel Peissel (1937-2011)
Adventurer and scholar Michel Peissel died on 7 October 2011, aged 74, in Paris. Peissel travelled extensively throughout the Himalayan region, which he documented in a number of books, including Tibet, the Secret Continent (2003). He held a Doctorate in Tibetan Ethnology from the Sorbonne in Paris, reflecting his interest in the region and its way of life. He was a member of the Explorers’ Club of New York and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), and lectured at the latter’s headquarters in London in the 1990s.
George Band OBE (1929-2011)
Mountaineer George Band died on 26 August 2011 at the age of 82. He was one of the last surviving members climbers of the successful British ascent of Everest when Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit in 1953. Band himself made the challenging ascent of Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain, in 1955. Born in Taiwan, Band studied geology at Cambridge, worked in oil exploration worldwide and was awarded an OBE in 2009. He was a Life Fellow and Council member of the Royal Geographical Society as well as President of the Alpine Club and British Mountaineering Council. He published books about mountaineering including Everest Exposed in 2005.
Basil Leonard Clyde Johnson (PDF) (1919–2011)
Basil Johnson, who died in Canberra on 25 August 2011 aged 91, had capitalised upon the peripatetic nature of his life’s trajectory to become a quintessential geographer. Born in Midlothian, Scotland, he researched in South Asia in various capacities, as an academic and consultant; held Chairs at Monash University, Melbourne, and the Australian National University; and was a life Fellow of the RGS-IBG. He published widely for academic audiences but also wrote novels and poems; and leaves behind him the Basil Johnson Photograph Collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
R.E.G. (‘Ron’) Davies (1921-2011)
Ron Davies died near London on 30 July 2011, 3 weeks past his 90th birthday. Shortly before he died he saw an early copy of his final ‘magnum opus’ Airlines of the Jet Age: A History (Smithsonian Academic Press), on which he laboured for a decade. Two-thirds of his life was devoted to the study of civil aviation through which his interest and knowledge of world geography expanded. Curator of the Department of Air Transport in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. from 1981 to 2011, he wrote 25 books on airline history, wrote numerous articles for magazines, had a life-long interest in travel and an incredibly wide-ranging knowledge of all things geographical.
Emeritus Professor Kenneth Brailey Cumberland CBE (PDF) (1913-2011)
Professor Cumberland, Honorary Member, died on 17 April 2011, aged 97. Originally from Bradford in Yorkshire, Professor Cumberland became a central figure in New Zealand geography as a teacher, advocate, writer and presenter both in his adopted land and around the world. In 1961 he was elected a Vice President of the International Geographical Union and in 1973 he became the first geographer to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He was well known for his radio and television appearances and was made a CBE for his services to education and communication. His memoirs, Milestones and Landmarks, will be published in 2011.
John Sunley (1936-2011)
John Sunley FRGS, who died on February 14 2011, aged 74, was chairman on the charitable foundation founded by his father Bernard and head of the family’s successful businesses in the construction industry. A host of charitable projects across the country bear the Sunley name, including the Sunley room at the Society named in grateful recognition of the donation of £100,000 made by the Sunley Foundation as a contribution to the Unlocking the Archives project. The Sunley Foundation’s grant contributed to the matching (25%) funds the Society needed to raise.
Professor Robert I. Woods (PDF) (1949-2011)
One of the most eminent historical demographers of his generation, Bob Woods enjoyed a distinguished and productive academic career, publishing more than 50 journal articles and 12 books. He held the John Rankin Chair of Geography at Liverpool, served as President of the British Society for Population Studies (1991), was founding co-editor (1997-92) of the International Journal of Population Geography (now known as Population, Space and Place), and was a recipient of the Society’s Murchison Award (1999).
Rex Ashley Walford OBE (1934-2011)
Rex Walford was a teacher, a natural enthusiast, a leading international name in geography education, a long-serving Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and one of the first group of Chartered Geographers. Rex supported the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in many ways over more than 25 years. He was the first Vice President (Education) from 1996 to 1999, simultaneously chairing the Society's Education Committee. He will be remembered as an extraordinary man with an infectious enthusiasm, warmth, dynamism and intellect.
Obituaries Policy
The Society publishes obituaries of the Society’s Royal and Gold Medal recipients; Directors, Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the IBG, RGS and RGS-IBG; Editors of the RGS-IBG journals; and those of academic or other distinction (at the Society’s discretion) in The Geographical Journal. Obituaries are also published online. For further information, please contact the Managing Editor.
Obituaries Archive