Academic Career
In the 1920s and 30s Wooldridge lectured at King's on a combined geography and geology course with the London School of Economics (LSE). In the Joint School of Geography King's offered Geomorphology, Meteorology, Biogeography and the History of Geographical Discovery, while the LSE offered the Regional and Economic aspects, Historical Geography, and the Distribution of Man. During World War II this arrangement was disrupted by the evacuation of King's to Bristol, requiring Wooldridge to teach human geography. His conversion to geography complete, he became professor of geography at Birkbeck College, London in 1944, returning to King's in 1947 as its first professor of geography and remaining until his death in 1963.
Wooldridge was a founder-member of the Institute of British Geographers (1933) for academics dissatisfied with the Royal Geographical Society's focus on amateur research and exploration; he was later IBG president (1949–50). He did not break completely with the RGS, serving on its council (1947–51). Wooldridge also served as president of the geography section of the British Association (1950) and chaired the Field Studies Council in 1952.
Read more about this topic: Sidney William Wooldridge
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