Walker Wilson Jervis
| Walker Wilson Jervis | |||||||||
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| File:Jervis, Walker Wilson.jpg | |||||||||
| Born | 1892 | ||||||||
| Residence | The University, Bristol | ||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
1921.05.21 proposed by M.A. Czaplicka, seconded by E.N. Fallaize
Notes From Elsewhere
Jervis, Walker Wilson at Bristol from 1920-1957
Although Geography had been studied and taught in University College Bristol it was as part of the Education programme. [12] Reynolds saw its potential as a separate academic discipline and Walter Willson Jervis was appointed in 1919 to an assistant lectureship in Geology to teach the new subject in collaboration with other members of the Geology staff: the first course was given in 1920. [13] At the time of his appointment to Bristol, Jervis was twenty-seven. He was a northcountryman, who had graduated with a BSc in Geology at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the University of Durham in 1913. He was promptly appointed to a teaching post in mathematics and geology at the University College, Exeter, but shortly went off to serve in the Great War.
Jervis’s lectures were well received and demand for a separate Geography syllabus increased. Under pressure from Reynolds, the Vice Chancellor and Senate agreed. Jervis became Lecturer in Charge of the new Department in 1925. But if he was to develop a new degree then help was needed and it came from two sources: academic staff and technical staff. .... While Kendall’s appointment secured the more scientific side of the new degree course, the arts side still needed to be met. Jervis turned to the leading centre in human geography, Aberystwyth, headed by Professor H.J. Fleure. It was largely through Fleure’s urgings that his research assistant, Stanley Jones, was persuaded to take the newly-established Assistant Lectureship at Bristol in 1927. ... Jones recalls how he discovered that Jervis wanted a Renaissance Man of all skills, and that he was set to teach a range of courses including climatology “one chapter ahead of the new students”. [16] In the years before climatological texts were abundant this was easier said than done, but fortunately Kendrew’s new text incorporating much of the German work had been published in 1922 and the Koppen framework was thus available in English. [17] ... A University Geographical Society was founded early in the Department’s history and has survived unbroken up to the present. The first meeting was held on Wednesday May 30th, 1923, in the Geographical laboratory with Jervis in the chair. The Society minutes record that “… after a few preliminary remarks it was proposed by Miss Hunt and seconded by Mr Bullock that there should be a Geographical Society established in the University and this motion was carried unanimously.” [33] Subscription was to be sixpence per month.
The first lecture was given by Jervis, as President, in October on ‘The Influence of an island environment as typified by Iceland.' .... In a small department with very heavy undergraduate teaching loads, almost no graduate students (the first MSc was not awarded until 1938) and no great publication pressure, research could not be a first priority. But papers and books came along. Jervis pursued his research in Iceland and Greenland and Gordon Moon recalls being despatched to Copenhagen to work for ‘the professor’ on the archives there. Jervis also pursued his work on the history of cartography, published a book on this, [37] and feuded with the librarian over the best location for the Department’s valuable collection of old atlases. ... On the national scene, 1933 had seen the establishment of a new geographical research group for university geographers, the Institute of British Geographers. Jervis was one of the 73 founding members; A.E. Trueman, a keen geomorphologist who had succeeded Reynolds in the Geology chair at Bristol, another. [40] .... With his appointment to a chair in 1933, Jervis became a member of Senate and served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1936 to 1939. He also took a special interest in university athletics.
... The shadow of war had begun to be cast by the late thirties. As early as 1938, Kendall had raised the Fifth Survey Regiment, R.A., and later himself led it to war. The Department was quickly stripped of its staff; in addition to Kendall, Jervis was away for much of the period on varied activities and Walker joined the Royal Air Force, later to serve with the Photo Intelligence Service. To his chagrin, Kendall was recalled to the University in 1941 and completed the war years as Acting Head of the Geography Department in Jervis’s absence. Jervis was away for some periods, working in the Naval Intelligence Division writing the Admiralty Handbook series under H.C. Darby’s direction. The completion of the Wills Memorial Building in 1925 had allowed the progressive transfer of University administrative offices from the South Building and the old Senate Room was pressed into public use during the war years. [53] .... Jervis, Kendall and Walker returned from the war but were hard pressed by rising student numbers. .... In 1957 Jervis’s long period at Bristol came to an end with his retirement.
Publications
External Publications
The world in maps : a study in map evolution. 1936
The lower Severn basin and the plain of Somerset
