William Richard Mead (1915–2014) was a British geographer, known for work on Scandinavia and North America.

Life

He was the son of William Mead, a grocer in

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...

and his first wife, Sarah Catherine Stevens, who died in 1918. He was educated at Aylesbury Grammar School. During teacher training at the

College of St Mark and St John Plymouth Marjon University, commonly referred to as Marjon, is the trading name of the University of St Mark and St John, a university based primarily on a single campus on the northern edge of Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom. Formerly named Uni ...

in London, he worked for an external degree of the University of London. He graduated in 1937, and went on to take a research master's degree involving the trade of Finland. He travelled there in 1938, and completed his master's in 1939. Mead joined the Royal Air Force in autumn 1939 as a volunteer. In 1940 he was posted to Mount Hope, Hamilton, Ontario, in an administrative role. In 1943 he moved back to England working for the

Royal Air Force Educational Service The Royal Air Force Educational Service was a civilian-manned service within the British Royal Air Force which provided instruction for aircraft apprentices and airmen, mainly in engineering, but also in other subjects. The service was establis ...

. He was demobilised in 1946. Completing a London Ph.D. interrupted by the war, Mead took a lecturing position at the University of Liverpool under

Henry Clifford Darby Sir Henry Clifford Darby, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (1909–1992), commonly known as Sir Clifford Darby, was a Welsh historical geographer and academic. He was a key figure in the establi ...

. With a grant from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

, he did fieldwork to investigate displaced families of

East Karelia East Karelia ( fi, Itä-Karjala, Karelian: ''Idä-Karjala''), also rendered as Eastern Karelia or Russian Karelia, is a name for the part of Karelia that since the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617 has remained Eastern Orthodox under Russian supremacy ...

. In the wake of Darby, Mead moved to University College London, where he settled for the rest of his career. He became professor in 1961. Head of the geography department in 1966, he retired in 1981. He received many academic honours, and became a fellow of the British Academy. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1976. He was President of the Geographical Association in 1981. In retirement, Mead lived in Aston Clinton. He died, unmarried, on 20 July 2014 at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, aged 98.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mead, William Richard 1915 births 2014 deaths People from Aylesbury British geographers Fellows of the British Academy Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters