Biography
BA (London 1966) PhD (London 1973) FRGS
With BA and Ph.D degrees from the University of London, and having experience of teaching human geography at Central London Polytechnic (now Westminster University), he arrived at Sussex in 1974. as Lecturer in Geography, and was promoted to a Senior lectureship in 1992, a Readership in 1995, and became Professor of Historical Geography in 2000. He also held several administrative posts e.g. Admissions tutor, Sub-dean (academic affairs) and Dean of the former School of Cultural and Community Studies 1995-2000. He was Geography Head of Department 2001-2004. Among several appointments within the counties of Sussex, he has also served as a Board Member for the Sussex Rural Community Council (now Action in Rural Sussex), as a committee member, and latterly chairman, of the Sussex Archaeological Society research committee from 2001, and is a former member of the Sussex Rural Housing Advisory Committee from 1993. He is also an invited founder-member of Board of Trustees for the County History Trust (for the Victoria County History) series from 1994, and was appointed as a member of the VCH panel of peer reviewers in 2006. He is a member of the editorial advisory board for Landscape History and (since 2014) for the internationally-renowned New Naturalist series. From 1992-98 he was a Countryside Commission nominee serving on the nationally important experimental South Downs Conservation Board. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford, and acted as an MA external examiner for the universities of Lancaster, Leicester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Oxford and Reading, as well as an external PhD examiner for many other universities. He retired in September 2009 but continues to research and write as an emeritus professor. His latest book is The Battle of the fields: rural community and authority in Britain during the Second World War (Boydell and Brewer 2014)
Role
Emeritus professor and postgraduate research supervisor