Who is G C Dickinson?

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Wed 22 Feb, 2012 2:18 pm

He wrote the text that goes with many of the Godfrey Maps of Leeds. Does anoybody know whe he is, other work or where he can be contacted. Thanks.

Chrism · Post by **Chrism** » Wed 22 Feb, 2012 3:09 pm

Google don't bring up much, just that he's a map maker/author/Geographer. No Wiki page on him.

Tasa · Post by **Tasa** » Wed 22 Feb, 2012 3:19 pm

There's virtually nothing on the internet about him but I've found out that his full name was Gordon Cawood Dickinson and he was a lecturer in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds in the 1950s (assuming that it is the same person, but he gave lectures on mapping and land use so I think it must be).I've found a photo of him in an Alumni Newsletter from 2009, on page 9:http://www.geography.leeds.ac.uk/filead ... SEPT09.pdf

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Wed 22 Feb, 2012 11:24 pm

Thanks, he must have done loads of research for his map commentaries, it's be great to know his source material.

iansmithofotley · Post by **iansmithofotley** » Wed 22 Feb, 2012 11:55 pm

Hi Cardiarms,I checked on Ancestry and there is a Gordon C. Dickinson listed as born in Pontefract in A/M/J 1927, and a marriage in Pontefract to Muriel D. Durham in J/A/S 1953. I have no evidence to say that it is the person you are looking for. I could not see a death for this person so they may be still alive or possibly died after 2005 (when the recorded records finish at the moment). The middle name is not shown in full..Ian

chemimike · Post by **chemimike** » Thu 23 Feb, 2012 1:55 am

If you go to abe books and look for him (http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... y=12&sts=t ), then, among the maps, there seem to be two books he has published, titled "Maps & Air photographs" and " Statistical mapping and presemtation of statistics". There may, of course, be some others not available for sale

Si · Post by Si » Thu 23 Feb, 2012 9:27 am

Cardiarms wrote: He wrote the text that goes with many of the Godfrey Maps of Leeds. Does anoybody know whe he is, other work or where he can be contacted. Thanks. Good thinking, Cardi. Yes, it would be great to find out how he knew all that stuff.

Tasa · Post by **Tasa** » Thu 23 Feb, 2012 4:19 pm

I had a look at one or two of his books in the Uni library at lunchtime (the two mentioned earlier in the thread) but didn't find anything particular in the bibliography about any resources we didn't know about.I've contacted Alan Godfrey Maps to let them know of our interest in his work and to ask whether he used any particular libraries or book collections for his research, and they have just replied to say that they will post my enquiry to him this evening!I guess that means that he doesn't do email, but if I hear anything, I'll update this thread.

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Thu 23 Feb, 2012 4:32 pm

Excellent, thank you very much

Tasa · Post by **Tasa** » Wed 29 Feb, 2012 4:08 pm

I spoke to Gordon Dickinson yesterday!We spoke on the phone for about 30 minutes and he is a very interesting man indeed! Unfortunately I don't think I've uncovered any new sources of information, as his notes for the Alan Godfrey maps have been based on a lifetime's accumulation of knowledge and snippets of information gathered from multiple sources such as OS maps of all ages, old newspapers, trade directories (e.g. Kelly's), reference libraries and old books and journals. His interests branch well beyond Leeds and he is currently visiting other libraries in West Yorkshire to look at their local history sections, although he no longer writes for Alan Godfrey.Gordon was very interested to hear about the Secret Leeds forum although he hasn't yet seen it, not being a very experienced user of the internet. I have encouraged him to have a browse and hopefully to join us!Gordon made a very kind offer of being happy to speak to anyone from the forum who has an interest in his work for Alan Godfrey and might like a more detailed chat. His background was in town planning as well as being a University lecturer so I'm sure long discussions could be had about that too!Obviously I won't put his phone number on the forum but if anyone who has contributed to this thread would be interested in contacting Gordon, please could they send an email to [email protected] and I'll receive a copy of the message. Please understand that I may need to be selective about who, and how many, forum members I supply with his phone number, depending on the number of requests I receive, as he may not know what he's let himself in for!Thanks.