Laurence Dudley Stamp
Born(1898-03-09)9 March 1898
Catford, London, England
Died8 August 1966(1966-08-08) (aged 68)
Mexico City, Mexico
OccupationGeographer
AwardsCharles P. Daly Medal (1950)

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

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

Early life and education

Stamp was born in Catford, London, in 1898, the seventh child of a shopkeeper; his elder brother Josiah became the banker Lord Stamp of Shortlands. He attended University School, Rochester (1910–13), where he joined the Rochester and District Natural History Society.[1] He then studied for a BSc at King'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 a DSc in the same year.[2]

World War I

Stamp served in the British Army during World War I in France and Belgium from 1917 to 1919. Whilst away his research paper on the Silurian of Clun Forest was read on his behalf to the Geological Society of London.

Professional and academic career

Stamp spent the early 1920s as a petroleum geologist in the then British Empire colony of Burma, marrying and becoming professor of geology and geography in the new University of Rangoon in 1923. In 1926 he returned to the UK, becoming Reader in Economic geography at the London 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.[3] Publication of maps and reports began in 1933 and was completed in 1948, after interruption by World War II.[4] 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.[5] 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 the International Geographical Union.[6]

Stamp became professor of Economic geography in 1945 and moved to the chair of Social geography in 1948. Whilst at LSE Stamp held senior posts at many organisations, including presidency of section E of the British Association (1949), the Geographical Association (1950), the International Geographical Union (1952–56) and the Institute of British Geographers (1956), and vice-presidency of the Royal Society of Arts (1954–56).[2]

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 the Ministry of Agriculture (1942–55), developed the idea of land classification which was officially adopted for planning purposes and was a member of the Royal Commission on Common Land (1955–58). He retired in 1958.[2]

Retirement

Besides DIY work at home in Bude, Cornwall, Stamp acted as a director of the family grocery firm Cave Austin and Company Ltd and was president of the Institute of Grocers (1960–63). His work as a geographer and government advisor however was far from over. He was a member of the Nature Conservancy from 1958, chairman of the British National Committee for Geography (1961–66) and president of the Royal Geographical Society (1963–66). Stamp's wife Elsa died in 1962. In 1964 he chaired the organising committee of the Twentieth International Geographical Union Congress in London; a keen philatelist, he successfully argued for a set of commemorative stamps. In 1965 he chaired the National Resources Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources.[2] Stamp died of heart failure in 1966 at a conference in Mexico City; he is reputed to have just completed a quest to visit every country in the world.[7] He was buried in Bude.[2]

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 of land-use changes.[2]

Second Land-use survey

A second land utilisation survey was initiated by Alice Coleman (later professor of geography at Stamp's alma mater King's College London) in 1960,[8] 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 the Geographical Association organized a further survey with the participation of around 50,000 school pupils.[9]

Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund

The Royal 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.[10]

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.[11]

Selected published works

Awards

Stamp was appointed CBE in 1946 and knighted in 1965. He received the Daniel Pidgeon award of the Geological Society (1920) and the gold medal of the Mining and Geological Institute of India (1922). Later he received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1949), the American Geographical Society's Charles P. Daly Medal (1950), the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography's Vega medal (1954), the Tokyo Geographical Society's medal (1957) and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Scottish Geographical Medal (1964). The Town Planning Institute elected him to honorary membership in 1944. Honorary degrees included LLD from Edinburgh (1963)[12] and DSc from Exeter (1965).[13]

References

  1. ^ "Rochester and District Natural History Society Minute books 1903 – 1926". Medway Cityark. Medway Council. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Wise M.J. (2004). "'Stamp, Sir (Laurence) Dudley (1898–1966)', rev.". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36238. Retrieved 14 March 2008. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ "BBC Britain from Above: The Dudley Stamp Maps". Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  4. ^ "The Maps that Helped to Defeat Hitler" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 November 2009. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  5. ^ Walford, R. (1999). "The 1996 Geographical Association Land Use-UK Survey: A Geographical Commitment" (PDF). International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education Vol. 8 No. 3. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  6. ^ Coleman, A & Maggs K.R.A (1965), Land Use Survey Handbook, fourth (Scottish) Edition, Isle of Thanet Geographical Association
  7. ^ Dodds E. (2004). "Where in the World?" (PDF). Geography Newsletter Spring 2004 No.4. University of Sussex Department of Geography. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 January 2004. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  8. ^ Coleman, A. (1961) The second land-use survey: Progress and prospect. Geographical Journal 127, 68–186.
  9. ^ Walford, R. (ed) (1997), Land-Use UK: A Survey for the 21st Century. Sheffield: Geographical Association.
  10. ^ "Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund". Our Work. The Royal Society. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  11. ^ "Lawrence (sic) Dudley Stamp Papers". Special collections Library. University of Sussex. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  12. ^ "1950–1999". Honorary Graduates of The University of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh Registry. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
  13. ^ "Honorary Graduands". Previous Honorary Graduands. University of Exeter. Archived from the original on 4 November 2007. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
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