Charles W. J. Withers

Geography, science, and national identity: Scotland since 1520

1. Introduction: geography, science and historical geographies of knowledge 2. Geography, identity and the making of the nation, 1520-1682 3. Geography, credibility and national knowledge, 1682-1707 4. Geography, enlightenment and the public sphere, 1707-c.1830 5. National identity, geographical knowledge and civic enterprise, c.1830-84 6. Geography and national identity in an age of High Empire, 1884-1930 7. Conclusion: a historical geography of geographical knowledge Appendix Bibliography Index.

Rethinking ‘disciplinary’ history: geography in British universities, c. 1580–1887

Against a background of recent work in the history of geography and of geographical knowledge, the paper considers evidence for the place of geography within British universities before the formal establishment of the first departments of geography. Attention is paid to geography’s discursive connections with other subjects within given university curricula, and to the values placed upon its teaching by contemporaries. The paper argues that extant historiographies for British geography should be revised in the light of such evidence. More importantly, the paper raises questions about the sites and intellectual spaces in which geography has been situated and about the content, nature and purpose of writing geography’s ‘disciplinary’ history.

Constructing ‘the geographical archive’

The recent success of the RGS–IBG in securing funds to develop the Society’s archives provides a moment in which those interested in the history of geographical knowledge and of geography as an academic discipline might reflect on the nature of ‘the geographical archive’ that is constituted in and by the academic department. Drawing, in part, upon the work of Derrida and of Foucault, the paper firstly examines what an archive is and what it does. Secondly, the paper raises questions about the process of archiving and the practices of being in the archive, using the example of a research project on the history of disciplinary geography in the author’s university department. In conclusion, the paper calls for wider collective attention to the nature of ‘the geographical archive’ in institutions teaching and researching geography in the UK.

Natural history societies, fieldwork and local knowledge in nineteenth-century Scotland: towards a historical geography of civic science

This paper examines the role of fieldwork in the activities of natural history societies in Victorian Scotland. Fieldwork, it is argued, was an important constituent in the making of local natural knowledge. Being and doing ‘in the field’ was a means to establish through fieldwork given scientific fields and, in turn, to promote civic identity through scientific conduct.

Memory and the history of geographical knowledge: the commemoration of Mungo Park, African explorer

Abstract Memory is the subject of widespread attention in numerous disciplines. In historical studies in particular, a range of work has explored the role of memory and the processes of memorialisation and of commemoration through which past events had and may continue to have meaning. Relatively little attention has been paid to the place of memory in relation to the history of geographical knowledge. Through an examination of the varied commemoration of the African explorer Mungo Park, and with reference to work in the history of science and in book history, this paper addresses this gap and discusses the implications of work on memory for an understanding of geographical knowledge in historical context.

Reporting, Mapping, Trusting: Making Geographical Knowledge in the Late Seventeenth Century

The essay examines a range of geographical practices used in understanding the geography of Scotland in the late seventeenth century in the work of Sir Robert Sibbald, John Adair, Robert Wodrow, and Martin Martin. Attention is paid to the ways in which geographical knowledge in this period was based not simply upon mapping, reporting, and direct personal encounter but upon establishing trust and credibility and in negotiating social boundaries. The issues of trust and reliance on the word of others, as on the accuracy of ones instruments, are used to raise different questions about the nature of geographical knowledge as a practical science and about the local and situated place of geography in the development of early modern science.

History and philosophy of geography 2004-2005: biographies, practices, sites

© 2007 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309132507073537

Geography, science and national identity in early modern Britain: The case of Scotland and the work of Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722)

Summary Following a review of connections between early modern geography and science and the forms taken by early modern geography, the paper discusses the geographical work and writings of Sir Robert Sibbald, who from 1682 was Geographer Royal. Geography in early modern England has been shown to be a means to national identity—through survey, local, and regional description, and via the empirical investigation of nature. Scotland has been largely neglected in such work. Sibbalds vision for geographical knowledge as part of useful natural knowledge is outlined in detail in his Account of the Scotish Atlas or the Description of Scotland Ancient and Modern (1683), and in the preface to his Scotia Illustrata (1684). These texts are examined in the context of what was understood by geography as a scientific practice in early modern Britain. Sibbalds questionnaire and survey methods are shown to be broadly consistent with the chorographical traditions of his contemporaries, and to have been critically depend...

Eighteenth-century geography: texts, practices, sites

This essay examines recent work on geography in the eighteenth century. Although it principally considers Britain, the paper also incorporates evidence from other countries and, in its concentration upon the eighteenth century rather than ‘early modern geography’ (the period c. 1600-1850), the essay offers a focus different from much other work. It is argued that, although geography may in its books have been understood by contemporaries as a consistently defined textual practice, significant variations existed in the cognitive content, purposive nature and institutional setting of geography. That this is so has important implications both for what we take geography in the eighteenth century to have been and for the nature of further research on the subject’s historical, intellectual and geographical dimensions.

Urbanising Britain : essays on class and community in the nineteenth century

List of figures List of tables Preface Notes on contributors Introduction: class, community and the processes of urbanisation Gerry Kearns and Charles W. J. Withers 1. Biology, class and the urban penalty Gerry Kearns 2. Public space and local communities: the example of Birmingham, 1840-1880 Bill Bramwell 3. Class, culture and migrant identity: Gaelic Highlanders in urban Scotland Charles W. J. Withers 4. The country and the city: sexuality and social class in Victorian Scotland J. A. D. Blaikie 5. Mobility, the artisan community and popular politics in early nineteenth-century England Humphrey Southall Notes Consolidated bibliography Index.