Vaughan Cornish: Geographer (With a Bibliography of His Published Works)

Vaughan Cornish (I862-1948), selected by C. 0. Sauer as one of six geographers whose readings would provide a 'truly liberal geographic education', was a worker of wide interests and versatility. He never held a university post, but was highly productive, publishing over ninety papers and books, and was President of both the Geographical Association and Section E of the British Association. He was a regular speaker at the Royal Geographical Society. His contributions to geography can be grouped into three main fields: the study of wave forms, the study of frontiers and capitals in historical and political geography and the study of aesthetic geography. He was the first British geographer to make a major study of dunes and made pioneer quantitative studies of their morphometry. His politicohistorical geography, while widely noted at the time, has now little impact, but his work on the preservation and aesthetics of scenery, which occupied the last part of his life, is of major significance. He attempted to evaluate the landscape objectively in terms of scenic beauty and made practical contributions to scenic preservation by donating his coastal land to the public and campaigning for the establishment of National Parks. VAUGHAN CORNISH was one of the most productive British geographers1 of all time, producing over ninety papers and books in a writing career spanning just over 6o years. C. 0. Sauer, in his classic Foreword to historical geography (I94I) selected Cornish as one of six geographical authors who would 'in themselves provide a truly liberal geographic education, provided each is taken as a whole, and not skimmed eclectically in terms of prearranged views as to what is and is not geographic'. The five other authors were C. Ritter, A. von Humboldt, G. P. Marsh, F. Ratzel and E. Hahn. With the possible exception of Hahn, who would have appealed to Sauer because of his studies of animal domestication, the five names cited with that of Cornish need no justification, for they are all firmly included in surveys of the history of geographical science. Cornish, however, has not been accorded this distinction,2 though E. W. Gilbert (i965; I972) has pointed to Cornish's notable work for the advancement of knowledge relating to the scenic beauty of town and country. Nevertheless, the opinion of Sauer is one that should be closely considered, especially as he himself did not elaborate greatly on this unusual selection, though it seems likely that the catholicity and versatility of Cornish's interests were a major factor in this choice, for Sauer deplored the period from I923 to 1939 which he called 'The Great Retreat'. Sauer believed that, during this time, geography, history and geology were torn apart as geographers tried to limit their field of study in order to exclude trespassers, and to avoid trespassing themselves in neighbouring fields. CORNISH 'S LIFE AND ASSOCIATIONS Cornish was born at Debenham in Suffolk on 22 December i 862, the third son of the vicar of that village, although his family was connected closely with Sidmouth in Devon, a part of the world for which Cornish developed a great feeling and about which he wrote in his