Dudley Stamp

Laurence Dudley Stamp
Born	(1898-03-09)9 March 1898 Catford,London,England
Died	8 August 1966(1966-08-08)(aged 68) Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation	Geographer
Awards	Charles P. Daly Medal(1950)

Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp,CBE,((1898-03-09)9 March 1898 –(1966-08-08)8 August 1966), was professor ofgeographyatRangoonandLondon,and one of the internationally best known Britishgeographersof the 20th century.

Educated atKing's College London,he specialised in the study ofgeologyandgeographyand taught at the universities ofRangoon(1923–26) andLondon(1926–45). From 1936 to 1944 he directed the compilation and publication of the report of theLand Utilisation Survey of Britain.He worked on many official enquiries into the use of land and planning.

Early life and education

Stamp was born inCatford,London, in 1898, the seventh child of a shopkeeper; his elder brother Josiah became the bankerLord Stamp of Shortlands.He attendedUniversity School, Rochester(1910–13), where he joined the Rochester and District Natural History Society.He then studied for a BSc atKing's College London,graduating with first-class honours in 1917. Following military service he returned to King's as a demonstrator. His friendship with a student, his future wife Elsa Rea, led to an interest in geography. They both sat for the BA in 1921, Stamp again taking a first. He was awarded aDScin the same year.

World War I

Stamp served in theBritish ArmyduringWorld War IinFranceandBelgiumfrom 1917 to 1919. Whilst away his research paper on theSilurianofClun Forestwas read on his behalf to theGeological Society of London.

Professional and academic career

Stamp spent the early 1920s as apetroleumgeologistin the thenBritish EmpirecolonyofBurma,marrying and becoming professor of geology and geography in the newUniversity of Rangoonin 1923. In 1926 he returned to the UK, becomingReaderinEconomic geographyat theLondon School of Economics(LSE).

In the 1930s Stamp formed the Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, a major project to survey of the whole country using volunteers including colleagues, students, school teachers and pupils, on a scale of 6 inches to a mile.Publication of maps and reports began in 1933 and was completed in 1948, after interruption byWorld War II.Stamp reported on the reaction of a farmer who came across a school class doing land-use survey on his land. Angry at first, the farmer was pacified by the explanation of the schoolmaster, and then later wrote approvingly to his local newspaper that this approach was valuable both to the pupils and the community.Stamp went on to act as a consultant to many national governments and prepared a general scheme for a world land use survey which was adopted by theInternational Geographical Union.

Stamp became professor ofEconomic geographyin 1945 and moved to the chair ofSocial geographyin 1948. Whilst at LSE Stamp held senior posts at many organisations, including presidency of section E of theBritish Association(1949), theGeographical Association(1950), theInternational Geographical Union(1952–56) and theInstitute of British Geographers(1956), and vice-presidency of theRoyal Society of Arts(1954–56).

He also acted as a government advisor – as vice-chairman of the Scott committee on land utilisation in rural areas (1941–42), as chief adviser on rural land utilisation in theMinistry of Agriculture(1942–55), developed the idea of land classification which was officially adopted for planning purposes and was a member of theRoyal Commission on Common Land(1955–58). He retired in 1958.

Retirement

Besides DIY work at home inBude,Cornwall,Stamp acted as a director of the family grocery firmCave Austin and CompanyLtd and was president of theInstitute of Grocers(1960–63). His work as a geographer and government advisor however was far from over. He was a member of theNature Conservancyfrom 1958, chairman of the British National Committee for Geography (1961–66) and president of theRoyal Geographical Society(1963–66). Stamp's wife Elsa died in 1962. In 1964 he chaired the organising committee of the TwentiethInternational Geographical UnionCongress in London; a keenphilatelist,he successfully argued for a set of commemorative stamps. In 1965 he chaired theNational Resources Advisory Committeeof theMinistry of Land and Natural Resources.Stamp died of heart failure in 1966 at a conference inMexico City;he is reputed to have just completed a quest to visit every country in the world.He was buried in Bude.

Legacy

Much of the development of government policy for land-use control in Britain may be traced back to Stamp's land utilisation survey and analysis ofland-use changes.

Second Land-use survey

A second land utilisation survey was initiated byAlice Coleman(later professor of geography at Stamp'salma materKing's College London) in 1960,following Stamp's approach of the use of volunteers. Although around 3000 volunteers completed much of the field work, only a limited amount was published at 1:25,000 due to printing problems.

Land-Use UK

In 1996 theGeographical Associationorganized a further survey with the participation of around 50,000 school pupils.

Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund

TheRoyal Geographical Society's Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund provides small grants for geographers to assist them in postgraduate research or study travel likely to lead to the advancement of geography and to international co-operation in the study of the subject.

Stamp Papers

The Stamp Papers, held at the department of geography,University of Sussex,contain much information on his organisation of the Land Use Survey, together with personal and professional papers which illustrate his life and career.

Selected published works

• (1919), "The highest Silurian rocks of the Clun-Forest District" (Shropshire).Quarterly Journal of the Geological SocietyLXXIV-3 (295); pp. 221–246.
• (1925),The Vegetation of Burma from an Ecological Standpoint.Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.
• (1927), "Wandlungen in Welthandelsverkehr: Atlantischer oder Stiller Ozean?" (Changes in World Trade Flows: Atlantic or Pacific Ocean?);Zeitschrift für Geopolitik,4 (12), 1927, pp. 64–66. (in German, English translation by Rolf Meyer to be published 2009).
• (1929),The World: A General Geography,London: Longmans, Green & Co.
• (1930? to 1932),The New Age Geographies Junior Series(with his wife Elsa C. Stamp) and theNew Age Geographies Senior Series for schools.
• (1933), ed.Slovene Studies: Being Studies Carried Out by Members of the Le Play Society in the Alpine Valleys of Slovenia (Yugoslavia).
• (1937), ed.The Land of Britain. The Report of the Land Utilisation Survey of Britain,London: Geographical Publications.
• (1940), "The Southern Margin of the Sahara: Comments on Some Recent Studies on the Question of Desiccation in West Africa";Geographical Review,Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 297–300.
• (1946),Britain's Structure And Scenery,London: Collins. (New Naturalist Libraryseries)
• (1946),Physical Geography and Geology,London: Longmans Green and Co.
• (1948),The Land of Britain: Its Use and Misuse.London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• (1949), with G. H. T. Kimble,An Introduction to Economic Geography,Toronto, New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• (1951), ed. withWooldridge S.W.,London Essays in Geography.London: Longmans, Green & Co. (for London School of Economics)
• (1952),Land for Tomorrow: the Underdeveloped World,Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• (1955),Man and the Land,London: Collins. (New Naturalist Library series)
• (1957),India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma,London: Metheun & Co. Ltd.
• (1959),A Regional Geography, Part I: The Americas.(9th ed 1959), Longman.
• (1960),Applied Geography.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
• (1961),A Glossary of Geographical Terms,London: Longmans,ISBN0-582-31062-8
• (1961), ed.A History of Land Use in Arid Regions,UNESCO Arid Zone Research Publication XVII, Paris:UNESCO.
• (1962),The Land of Britain: Its use and misuse.3rd enlarged ed.
• (1962),Britain's Structure And Scenery,Fontana.
• (1963), withHoskins, W.G.,The Common Lands of England and Wales,New Naturalist Series, London: Collins.
• (1969),Nature Conservation in Britain,London: Collins. (New Naturalist Library series)
• (1969),Our Developing World,London: Faber and Faber,ISBN0-571-04639-8.

Awards

Stamp was appointedCBEin 1946 and knighted in 1965. He received the Daniel Pidgeon award of theGeological Society(1920) and the gold medal of the Mining and Geological Institute of India (1922). Later he received theFounder's Medalof theRoyal Geographical Society(1949), theAmerican Geographical Society'sCharles P. Daly Medal(1950), theSwedish Society for Anthropology and Geography'sVega medal(1954), theTokyo Geographical Society's medal (1957) and theRoyal Scottish Geographical Society'sScottish Geographical Medal(1964). TheTown Planning Instituteelected him to honorary membership in 1944. Honorary degrees includedLLDfromEdinburgh(1963)andDScfromExeter(1965).