[Andrew John]. British geographer, born at Galashiels on the 11th of October 1865, and educated at Galashiels Academy and Edinburgh Institution. He served for some time with a firm of surveyors in Edinburgh, but later entered Edinburgh University, where he was engaged in research work under Prof. Tait. He subsequently carried out investigations on hygrometry at the Ben Nevis observatory. In 1894 he was appointed lecturer in Geography at Owens College, Manchester; in 1896 lecturer at the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh, and in 1899 assistant to the reader in geography at Oxford. He became reader in geography in 1905 and in 1910 received the title of professor. The same year he was president of the geographical section of the British Association. He edited, with Dr. Buchan, the volume on meteorology for Bartholomew’s Physical Atlas (1899) and, with O. J. R. Howarth, a Survey of the British Empire (1914). His paper on Climatic Regions of the Globe attracted much attention, and his numerous textbooks on geographical subjects and the leading part he took in the foundation and development of the Geographical Association enabled him to exert a powerful influence on the improvement of the teaching of geography. He died at Chinnor, near Oxford, on the 31st of July 1915.
