Copies of material relating to the life and work of George Goudie Chisholm, drawn together by Professor T. W. Freeman

The material in the collection is composed of:

• typescript biographies of and notes on Chisholm by John Macfarlane and H.J. Fleure and various
• copy of typescript letter to C.J. Robertson from the IGU Commission on the History of Geographical Thought, dated 9 May 1975
• copies of typescript letters to Marguerita Oughton from C.J. Robertson, 3 May 1975, 16 June 1975 and 20 June 1975
• copy of typescript letter to Walter [Freeman] from C.J.Robertson dated 23 July 1974
• copy of part of a typescript letter from C.J. Robertson to Freeman dated 20 August 1951
• copy of an extract of a typescript letter from E.M. Gorrie to Freeman dated 10 September 1951
• copy of typescript letter from J.Y. Erskine to Freeman dated 30 September 1950

The geographer Professor Thomas Walter Freeman was born on 27 December 1908 in Congleton, Cheshire. Between 1922 and 1926 Freeman attended grammar schools in Nantwich, Cheshire and at Bridgend, South Wales. In 1927 he entered the University of Leeds and in 1930 graduated with a first-class honours degree in geography, followed in 1931 by a Diploma of Education.

He served as a Lecturer in the Geography Department of Edinburgh University, 1933-1936, and in 1934 he assumed some editorial responsibilities for the Scottish Geographical Magazine. Freeman then moved to Trinity College, Dublin, where he initiated an honours course in geography and began research on Irish population patterns.

During the Second World War, between 1941 and 1945 he worked part-time at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge as assistant to P. M. Roxby, who was preparing Admiralty handbooks on China.

In 1950 Freeman became Reader in Geography at Manchester University - and then Professor in 1974 - and he remained at Manchester until his retirement in 1976.

His publications included Ireland: a Regional Geography (1950), Geography and Planning (1958), The Conurbations of Great Britain (1959), and Geography and Regional Administration (1968).

Professor Thomas Walter Freeman died on 11 March 1988

Open to bona fide researchers, but please contact repository for details in advance of visit.

Material acquired by donation April 2011. Accession no: E2011.11.

Compiled by Graeme D. Eddie, Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections.

Also at Special Collections, Edinburgh University Library, 'Papers of George Goudie Chisholm', Gen. 1060/1-31.