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.
Professor Karl A. Sinnhuber (1919-2010)
Professor Karl A. Sinnhuber, FRGS, died at Gmunden, his home village in Austria, on 5 November 2010. After wartime military service, Professor Sinnhuber came to the UK as an exchange teacher in Glasgow. He was then appointed to academic posts at the University of Southampton, UCL and Surrey, before moving to Vienna where he occupied the Chair of Economic Geography until his retirement. He taught courses on Germany, the historical geography of Central Europe, and map projections, and made important contributions to political geography, publishing a textbook 'Germany: its geography and growth' (1961). He was Honorary President of the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftsraumforschung. He is survived by his wife, three children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
John Bryan Heaney (1931-2010)
John Heaney was an explorer, a widely travelled oilman, and a long-serving Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and long standing member of the Geographical Club. He died on 3 November 2010, aged 79 and is survived by his wife, son and daughter and five grandchildren.
Professor Louis Rey (1931-2010)
Professor Louis Rey, FRGS, died on 26 October 2010. A scientific advisor based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Professor Rey was a Regent’s Lecturer and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The author, coauthor, or editor of 16 books and 130 papers and notes in eight languages, he had presented 250 lectures worldwide. He worked as a research scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France, as a professor of physical-chemical biology at the University of Dijon, France, and as Head of Corporate Research and Development for Nestlé, Vevey, Switzerland. He was also a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Savoy.
Dr Paul Mackintosh (1929-2010)
Dr Paul Mackintosh Orgill Massey attended Oundle School and St John’s College Cambridge, where he studied medicine. A keen and talented rower, he rowed for the Cambridge blues in 1949 and 1950, joined the Thames Rowing Club in 1948 and won silver rowing in the VIII’s at the 1948 London Olympics and 4th place in the coxed four at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. He was the team doctor for the 1964 Tokyo and 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Employed by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey Grahamland, Antaractica 1954-56, he sailed on the RRS John Biscoe. Massey Heights (63°58'19"S; 57°57’ 0" W) on James Ross Island are named after him. He was a Medical Practitioner and held major appointments at the Middlesex Hospital. He is survived by three daughters and two sons.
Richard ('Dick') Lawton (1925-2010)
Richard (‘Dick’) Lawton, died on 22nd March 2010, aged 85. After war service in the Royal Navy, he completed his BA (1948) and MA (1950) and became Assistant Lecturer in 1949. Rising through the ranks to his chair in 1970, he was Dean of the Faculty from 1977 to 1980, retiring in 1983. He served as President of the Institute of British Geographers in 1986. Dick’s academic interests were broad, embracing nineteenth century historical geography and modern population and urban planning issues. He is remembered as a vigorous and loyal colleague with an enduring legacy at Liverpool and in the wider academic community.
Dr Phillip Garth Law AC CBE (1912-2010)
This redoubtable Australian polar explorer and recipient of the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal (1960) died on 28 February 2010, aged 97. Such was his stature, with no less than 28 expeditions to the Antarctic and its islands, he was frequently referred to as ‘Mr Antarctica’.
Alf Gregory (1913-2010)
Alf (‘Greg’) Gregory died on 9 February 2010, aged 96. He will be remembered as the official stills photographer on the first successful ascent of Everest in 1953 and as a keen mountaineer. His remarkable portfolio of photographs were used to illustrate the many subsequent books about the Everest expedition.
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