Prior to the amalgamation of Aberdeen’s two medieval universities in 1860, Geography had been taught to undergraduate students at both King’s and Marischal Colleges since at least the late 16th Century. First mooted in the early 1900s, it was not until 1919 that a lectureship in Geography at Aberdeen was created and a ‘Department of Geography’ came into being. Autumn 2019 marks the centenary of the establishment of this Department.
The establishment of a Geography Department at Aberdeen came about by a rather unusual route. In 1918, plans for a new degree that had been put in abeyance during World War I, a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom.), were resurrected. ‘Economic Geography’ was prescribed as a compulsory course for BCom. students and central University funding for a new lectureship and the associated creation of a Department of Geography were announced in the Aberdeen University Review in June 1919. John McFarlane was appointed as the first Lecturer in Geography and he arrived in Aberdeen in advance of the opening of the 1919-20 academic session. Provisions for an Honours degree in Geography, including Ordinary and Advanced (1st and 2nd year respectively) courses open to all MA and BSc students, were approved for introduction in session 1920-21. Ordinary Geography quickly became a popular course for both MA and BSc undergraduates and the first Honours degrees in Geography were conferred in summer 1928.
The post-World War II period saw Geography develop into a large and influential Department led by Andrew O’Dell. By 1950 there were five academic staff who could offer a more diverse curriculum to growing numbers of Geography undergraduates. The department’s expansion meant it was in need of more space, and in 1949 Geography and some other departments moved from cramped quarters in Marischal College to St Mary’s in Old Aberdeen. Geography is still based in this former Free Church of Scotland building in the heart of the historic King’s College campus.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Department (and the University of Aberdeen more generally) experienced unprecedented levels of growth. Student numbers, research output and income accelerated apace. To create space for the burgeoning Department, St Mary’s was ‘taken over’ by geographers in 1964 (the other Departments occupying the building moved to newly-built facilities elsewhere on the Old Aberdeen campus). Further space was created by the development of the first of two major extensions to St Mary’s which opened in 1968. Continued growth in the 1970s led to the construction of a second major extension. Opened in 1980, this effectively doubled the floor space and created further teaching and laboratory facilities and more staff offices.
The 1980s were a difficult decade for the University of Aberdeen as a result of swingeing cuts imposed on the institution by the UK University Grants Committee. Permission to break ground on the second extension was received only five days before a final moratorium on all further new buildings was issued by the funding body. Although academic staff redundancies were avoided during the 1980s, staff who left the Geography Department for positions elsewhere or through retirement were not replaced, while technical and other support staff positions were lost.
In the recent past, national assessments of research and teaching quality and institutional restructuring have prompted further change. Since the year 2000, 32 individuals have joined the Geography academic staff and 40 have left. This churn is in marked contrast to the relative stability of the staff complement in earlier periods of the Department’s history. In 2004, Geography, along with Geology and Archaeology, became one of the disciplines comprising the School of Geosciences. The MA and BSc Geography degree programmes continue to attract healthy numbers of undergraduate students and were amongst the first to receive endorsement under the Royal Geographical Society’s recently launched accreditation programme. The Department offers three taught postgraduate programmes – MSc Geographical Information Systems, Master of Land Economy (Rural Surveying) and MSc Environmental Partnership Management – and the sizeable postgraduate research student community benefits from membership of two UK research council funded Doctoral Training Partnerships.
As the Aberdeen Geography Department enters a second century, it remains committed to delivering a high quality education to undergraduate and postgraduate students and to the pursuit of excellence in geographical research.
Lorna J. Philip and Kevin J. Edwards
A full history of Geography at Aberdeen will be published in the forthcoming Special Issue of Scottish Geographical Journal which marks the Centenary of Aberdeen University’s Geography Department.
