Patrick Geddes collection

The collection comprises of correspondence by Geddes to the polar explorer William Speirs Bruce.

Patrick Geddes was born in 1854 in Ballater, Aberdeenshire. He was educated at Perth Academy before studying biology under Thomas Henry Huxley and zoology under Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers. From 1877, he acted successively as demonstrator of physiology at University College, London, demonstrator of zoology at Aberdeen University and demonstrator of botany at Edinburgh University. Ill health restricted his career as a natural scientist so he turned instead to social analysis, applying his scientific methodology to the processes of economic and social change. From 1889 until his resignation in 1919, he held a part-time post as professor of botany at University College, Dundee, devoting his spare time to urban and regional planning. In 1904, his influential report 'City Development, a Study of Parks, Gardens and Culture Institutes' was published, and from 1911, his Cities and Town Planning Exhibition was shown in Britain, Europe and India.

From 1914 to 1924, he lived mainly in India, holding the chair of civics and sociology at Bombay University between 1920 and 1923. In 1924, he settled in Montpellier, where he established the Scots College. He was knighted in 1932 and died at Montpellier in the same year.

The correspondence is arranged chronologically.

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Descriptions compiled by N. Boneham, Assistant Archivist with assistance from R. Stancombe and reference to Robert Keith Headland Antarctic Chronology, unpublished corrected revision of Chronological list of Antarctic expeditions and related historical events, (1 December 2001) Cambridge University Press (1989) ISBN 0521309034 and Dictionary of National Biography, 1931-1940, with an index covering the years 1901-1940 in one alphabetical series, Oxford University Press London (1950) and Dundee University and Who was who, 1929-1940, Adam and Charles Black London (1947)

Clive Holland Manuscripts in the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England - a catalogue, Garland Publishing New York and London (1982) ISBN 0824093941.

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