Geography Milestone for Massey University

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Distinguished New ZealandGeographer Award

Professor Peter Holland was presented withthe Distinguished New Zealand GeographerAward at the New Zealand Geographical Soci-ety’s Annual General Meeting in September2008. As 10th President of the Society (2002–2006), he led its revitalisation and repositioningas a learned body. His effectiveness in this roleowed much to his standing at every level in theNew Zealand geographical community.

He graduated from the University of Canter-bury in 1963 with an MSc in Geography withfirst class honours. There followed two decadesabroad, in Australia, Canada, Kenya and SouthAfrica. Conceptualising cultural landscapes asbio-geographical experiments, he approachedthe constitutive dynamics of landscape com-plexities from several directions – throughplant ensembles, through ephemeral or transi-tory plants, and by focusing on water stress andnutrient-poor soils. He established an interna-tional research reputation based on the use ofthe use of permanent quadrats to explore thespatial and temporal dynamics of vegetation.This involved the mallee in southeasternAustralia, trout lily in the eastern deciduousforests of North America, and the widespreadgenera Euphorbia and Aloe in eastern andsouthern Africa, respectively, working on par-allel inquiries at three different scales: the local,the landform and the national or continentalscale.

Peter was appointed to the Chair in Geogra-phy at the University of Otago in 1982.He co-edited (with Barry Johnston) SouthernApproaches in the mid-1980s, creating crucialintellectual space for the New Zealand geogra-phy community at the time. He also began toblend plant ecology, historical methodologiesand socio-cultural geography to study the shiftfrom environmental learning to environmentalmodification in colonial New Zealand. A suc-cession of publications has provided insightfulunderstandings of human intervention incomplex and dynamic biophysical processes,

with strong resonances in contemporaryNew Zealand.

Peter is extraordinarily student-centred inteaching and supervision. He takes great prideand pleasure in this facet of his work. As Headof the Otago Department for 10 years, he laid afoundation for others to build upon. He servedas Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in theHumanities Division between 1998 and 2006,working closely with graduate students.Outside the University of Otago, he has givenextensive service to a committee of the NewZealand Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, theNew Zealand Qualifications Authority and theNew Zealand Universities Academic AuditUnit. His lengthy terms as Associate Editor ofthe Journal of Biogeography, Global Ecologyand Biogeography and Biodiversity Letters rep-resent a Herculean contribution to the devel-opment of the subject.

Richard Le HeronSchool of Geography, Geology and

Environmental SciencesThe University of Auckland

Geography Milestone forMassey University

The Geography Programme at Massey Univer-sity celebrates its 50th year in 2009. BryanSaunders was appointed to the staff of Palmer-ston North University College in 1959 andjoined shortly after by the late Eric Warr earlyin 1960. The first lectures were delivered to aclass of just over 20 students in 1960 thatincluded a number of part timers. In 1963, theUniversity College merged with Massey Agri-cultural College to form what eventuallybecame Massey University, and Dr KeithThomson, second Principal of the UniversityCollege, became Dean of General Studies andProfessor of Geography and later Dean ofSocial Sciences. By 1969, the Department wasteaching extramural courses, a feature of theinstitution in the New Zealand context.

New Zealand Geographer (2009) 65, 154–158

© 2009 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2009 The New Zealand Geographical Society

doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2009.01157.x

The Department continued to expand intothe 1970s and 1980s; a specialist Planningdegree was launched, and DevelopmentStudies emerged out of Geography as aseparate major. Professor John Flenley wasappointed in 1989 and established a distinctiveline of palynological research. University-widerestructuring in 2000 saw the establishment oflarger schools, and Geography now exists as aprogramme within the School of People Envi-ronment and Planning. Massey UniversityGeography has now reached a significant mile-stone, particularly with respect to the socialsciences in the New Zealand university system.It is planned to mark this occasion with sym-posium and social function later in 2009.

Michael RocheGeography Programme

School of People Environment and PlanningMassey University

Obituaries

A tribute: Leslie Leigh Pownall(1921–2008) and Leslie Curry (1922–2009)Recent months have seen the passing of twodistinguished graduates of New Zealand geog-raphy, Leslie Leigh Pownall in October 2008,and Leslie Curry in January 2009. Both menwere born in the early 1920s, Pownall in Wan-ganui, Curry in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and cameto be appointed as lecturers in geography inNew Zealand universities, Pownall at Canter-bury in 1951 and Curry at Auckland in 1953.Under arrangements that were then morecommon than today, both completed PhDswhile serving as members of the teaching staff,Pownall in 1956 and Curry in 1959. Thereafter,their careers diverged widely, though marked inboth cases with distinction, and with scholarlycontributions that helped shape the discipline.

Leigh Pownall was the father of urban geog-raphy in New Zealand. His research publica-tions on the towns and cities of the country firstappeared in the 1940s and continued up untilthe early 1960s when he moved into universityadministration. Johnston (1969) in his survey ofurban geography in New Zealand accords‘special consideration’ to Pownall as ‘the mainexponent of urban geography in New Zealand

during the 1950s’ and as the ‘only New Zealandworker to make detailed methodological pro-nouncements concerning urban geography’. Henotes how Pownall’s work broke with paststudies that focused on the unique features ofplaces and emphasised rather the search forinductive generalisations. His doctoral disserta-tion was on the origins, form and functions ofNew Zealand’s main 48 urban centres, andJohnston expresses regret that the section pre-senting a ‘theory of urban growth’ was neverpublished, since he found its 11 propositions‘extremely interesting and parallel (to) thefindings of Murphy and Vance published in theUnited States at the same time’. Pownall did,however, win overseas recognition by publish-ing in prestigious international journals(Pownall 1953, 1956, 1957, 1960). It was aremarkable record.

Those of us who were his students, and, later,colleagues, will remember Leigh not only as adedicated researcher but as a gifted teacher, anencouraging mentor and a supportive friend.His undergraduate lectures were always inter-esting, delivered clearly and with touches ofhumour. As my thesis supervisor, he wasdemanding particularly as regards clarity ofexpression but always supportive of my efforts.His telegram in early 1960 offering me a lec-tureship back at Canterbury was mostwelcome, and although he left the departmentfor the Vice-Chancellor’s office in the followingyear, he gave support to my efforts to trans-plant some of the ‘revolutionary’ ideas I hadacquired in the United States.

Others have similar memories. Peter Hollandrecalls ‘the way he supported all of us from thirdyear onward . . . during an honours seminar Imade a few back-of-the-envelope calculationsand sketched a gravity surface for central placesin Canterbury which I showed Leigh after class.Anyone else would have said something aboutnot paying attention to the presentation, but hetook an interest in what I had produced, sug-gested an interpretation, and set me on the pathI have happily followed ever since’. Bill Clark,who was Leigh’s first urban geography gradu-ate, remembers how his ‘first course in urbangeography,taught to a half dozen of us,ploughedthrough the newly published book by Mayerand Kohn, Readings in Urban Geography. . . here was the first whiff of change in

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geography . . . it was an exciting year’. The lateReg Golledge, who joined the Canterburydepartment in 1961, recalled how when he andhis wife arrived in Christchurch by train, theywere met at the station by Leigh, and ‘welearned he had found a place for us to live. Heshowed us around Christchurch and described awalking route for me to get to the university.This was but a small example of how efficientand polished Pownall was both in general as anadministrator and as a mentor to his faculty’.

With his appointment as Vice Chancellorof Canterbury in 1961, Pownall gave up hisresearch interests, though he continued to assistand consult with the Christchurch City Councilon matters related to housing and urban policy.A contribution in 1962 to a festschrift for hisown mentor George Jobberns marked the endof his publishing career. He moved from Can-terbury to the position of the Clerk of theSenate of the University of London in 1966,and then in the mid-1970s, returned downunder to Sydney to head up the New SouthWales planning commission. He was a distin-guished New Zealand geographer.

Les Curry, after teaching in the Aucklanddepartment for seven years, left New Zealand in1960, and after short spells at the Universities ofMaryland and Arizona State, was appointed tothe University of Toronto in 1964, where heremained until his retirement in 1985. He had adistinguished career as a researcher, and thiswas acknowledged by the International Geo-graphical Union (IGU) in 2000, when it con-ferred on him its Laureate d’Honneur.

He began his career as a climatologist, andpublished some of his earliest papers on atmo-spheric circulation and climate change. HisPhD dissertation examined the relationshipsbetween livestock farming and climate in dif-ferent parts of New Zealand. From this work,he later recalled (Curry 2002), ‘two lifelonginterests emerged . . . ; probability theory –here in terms of rainfall and of grass growth –and the treatment of storage operations – herein measuring soil moisture, in transferringsurplus feed via hay and silage, in schedulingcalving and lambing to fit in with grass growth,and so on’. Two papers that drew on the thesiswere published a few years later (Curry 1962,1963). Their analysis of pastoral farming, ‘a

commonplace picture’ in which ‘one maydiscern the poetry of finely modulated, inte-grated systems, the drama of risks taken, thestatement and the solution of problems of baf-fling complexity’, was brilliant, elegant andnovel in the economic geography literature, butLes never returned to the subject; his laterwork dealt more with settlement systems andabstract economic landscapes.

In his subsequent research, his overridingconcern was to develop a theory about the pro-cesses that give rise to those spatial features ofthe economy that we observe. His approachwas always on the conceptual level. He wasinsistent that the relevant processes relatingto the behaviour of individuals and firms inthe aggregate, to the location of activities, to thestructure of settlement and trade, and to thedynamics of these systems were all subject tochance and could be described and analysedusing probability theory. In other words, theywere stochastic processes, and in his work, heoften borrowed mathematical treatments ofsuch processes from other disciplines. Hispapers were never easy reading.

The term ‘random spatial economy’ was onethat he introduced in a 1964 publication,‘dreamed up on a whim’ he said later, but hefound it to be an appropriate title for his bookin which he collected together his variouspapers on the subject (Curry 1998). The book,he said was ‘a theoretical study representing alifetime’s pursuit of understanding how theeconomy works geographically’. It is animpressive volume.

Les received many honours, from theAmerican and Canadian Geographical Asso-ciations, the Guggenheim Foundation and hisuniversity. The IGU citation in 2000 describedhim as ‘a scholar who by way of his contribu-tions in climatology, economic geography andspatial analysis has challenged established linesof thinking and provided valuable new insightsinto the ways whereby human behavior shapesthe world we live in. Professor Curry’s theoreti-cal studies in economic geography, especiallystudies that draw upon the mathematics ofprobability theory and the concepts of physicalsystems analysis, have been unmatched in theiroriginality and rigor and established his inter-national reputation as one of the leading theo-reticians in the discipline’.

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He was a powerful intellect but never arro-gant or distant. A warm and genial person,he was always good company. He knew thediscipline well and enjoyed conversation aboutit. When he was at the lectern or blackboard,however, he could frustrate those who wereexpecting a neatly crafted and flowing presen-tation. With his head down and shuffling slowlyaround the platform, he would appear to driftinto deep thought, his mind racing ahead of hiswords.Warren Moran notes that ‘I recall vividlya first year climatology lecture from him. Hebegan his interpretation of planetary pressureand wind systems with theory but unfortu-nately by the end of the lecture the northeastand southeast trade winds ended up as wester-lies on his blackboard map. His response wasto gaze at the map quizzically, throw the chalkin the air and exclaim “oh what the hellanyway!” ’.

The group of graduate students who workedwith Les was never a large one, but those whomade the commitment and survived wereforever grateful and loyal to him. They havegone on to make their own marks in the disci-pline. He never talked much about his time inNew Zealand, though he was proud that histwin children were born there, and he wasalways interested in hearing about happeningsdown under. He is a distinguished graduate ofwhom the New Zealand geography communitycan be proud.

AcknowledgementsI am grateful to William A. V. Clark, PeterHolland and Warren Moran for their assistancein preparing this tribute.

Leslie J. KingSchool of Geography and Earth Sciences

McMaster University

ReferencesCurry L (1962). The climatic resources of intensive

grassland farming: The Waikato, New Zealand.Geographical Review 52, 174–94.

Curry L (1963). Regional variation in the seasonalprogramming of livestock farms in NewZealand. Economic Geography 39, 95–118.

Curry L (1998). The Random Spatial Economy and itsEvolution. Ashgate, Aldershot.

Curry L (2002). A random walk in terra incognita. In:Gould, P, Pitts, FR, eds. Geographical Voices.Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY,pp. 81–98.

Johnston RJ (1969). Urban geography in NewZealand, 1945–1969. New Zealand Geographer25, 121–35.

Pownall LL (1953). The functions of New Zealandtowns. Annals of the Association of AmericanGeographers 43, 332–50.

Pownall LL (1956). Evolution of the urban structureof New Zealand. Tijdschrift voor Economischeen Sociale Geografie 47, 63–8.

Pownall LL (1957). The retail potential of somerepresentative New Zealand towns. EconomicGeography 33, 163–70.

Pownall LL (1960). Low-value housing in two NewZealand cities. Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 50, 439–60.

Richard Jeremy Lowe (1945–2008)Jeremy Lowe (MA Hons, Auckland, 1966) diedof motor neurone disease in July 2008 after alengthy illness.We were both graduate studentsin the Department of Geography at theUniversity of Auckland in the mid-1960s, weworked together for the best part of a decadeon the Population Monitoring Group of theformer New Zealand Planning Council, and wehave both been members of the PopulationAssociation of New Zealand (formerly theNew Zealand Demographic Society) since itsformation in the early 1970s.

Jeremy devoted his life to geography outsidethe academy. Between 1966 and 1988, he was anInvestigating Officer/Senior InvestigatingOfficer with the Town and Country PlanningBranch/Division/Directorate of the Ministry ofWorks/Works and Development. Following thedisbanding of the Directorate late in 1988 aspart of the Labour Government’s restructuringagenda, he set up his own consultancy(Thorndon Research and Consultancy Ser-vices) and spent the next 18 years working oncontract. Between 1989 and 2006, when illnessbegan to disrupt his work, he completed con-tracts for the New Zealand Planning Council(regional and international migration; Maori inAustralia), Wellington Regional Council andAuckland City Council (urban area migration),the Ministry of Education (effects of migrationon school rolls), Housing Corporation of NewZealand (demographic pressure on housingdemand), Bureau of Immigration, Multicul-

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tural and Population Research, Melbourne(return migration of New Zealanders,Australians in New Zealand), the Departmentof Statistics (abstract of New Zealand regionalstatistics), Department of Maori Affairs/TePuni Kokiri (iwi population change), amongothers.

Jeremy’s curriculum vitae lists over 60 publi-cations, half of which were research mono-graphs or technical reports completed whileworking in the Town and Country PlanningDivision/Directorate. Most of his journalarticles appeared in the New Zealand Popula-tion Review, and he was one of the authors ofall of the Population Monitoring Group’sreports between 1984 and 1991 when the Plan-ning Council was disbanded. His lasting contri-bution to New Zealand’s geography anddemography is his construction of historicaldata bases at the regional/iwi scale, and hisattempts to measure the regional impacts ofdomestic and international migration in NewZealand. As Professor Ian Pool noted in a per-sonal tribute to Jeremy: ‘He was the intellectualpioneered for this area of research in NewZealand’.

During the last decade of his research, hedevoted most of his time to writing the histori-cal geography and demography of Thorndonand pursuing a life-long interest in maritimehistory. As Jeremy observed rather wryly in theconclusion to his reflections in 2007 on his yearsas a geographer, ‘juggling my current work pro-gramme with minimal income has proved astrain, and my health problems of the lastcouple of years have knocked me around, but Iam making progress with my Thorndon projectand its spinoffs. I’ve worked through enough tobe confident that I will do something usefulabout putting history into geography and viceversa, and I know I’ve developed substantialhistorical demographic databases that have notbeen done in this country before’. Jeremy Lowecertainly did that, and his legacy is his contri-bution to establishing robust statistical data-bases for regional geography and demographyin New Zealand.

Richard BedfordPopulation Studies Centre

University of Waikato

Jeff Pepper (1946–2008)Jeff Pepper, who died in 2008, did much toshape geography and social science curricula inNew Zealand schools. He graduated with a BA(Hons) in geography from Victoria UniversityWellington, and in 1970 majored in geogra-phical education at Christchurch Teachers’College, one of the most promising teachertrainees in his year. He then joined the staff ofCashmere High School, where he quicklygained a reputation as an innovative teacher.While there, he wrote a popular Form 3 socialstudies text on apartheid in South Africa. In1980, he joined the foundation staff of Elles-mere College as HOD Social Science, teachingsocial studies and senior geography and history.He served for several years on the ChristchurchGeography Teachers Association, and was alsoSecretary of the Federation of Social StudiesAssociations of New Zealand.

He was appointed Senior Lecturer in SocialScience Education at Christchurch College ofEducation in 1991 and was College of Educa-tion representative on the New Zealand Boardof Geography Teachers. He was one of a teamof three who undertook the monumental taskof writing the first draft of the Social Studies inthe New Zealand Curriculum document in1993, and was involved in the development ofthe geography unit standards assessment in1992–1994. In 1994, he was appointed to theNew Zealand Qualifications Agency, specialis-ing in developing moderating systems forgrade-related and Unit Standards assessmentof several secondary school subjects, includinggeography. He went back to the ChristchurchCollege of Education in 1999 as AcademicDean, School of Secondary Teacher Education.He was awarded Life Membership of the NewZealand Geographical Society in 2005 for hisservices to geographical education.

Murray Fastier andJohn Macaulay

College of EducationUniversity of Canterbury

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Geography Milestone for Massey University