Obituary: J.W.R. Whitehand (1938–2021)

Jeremy Whitehand in Chenjiaci, Guangzhou, 2007. Photograph: K. Gu

J.W.R. Whitehand, Emeritus Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Birmingham, died suddenly in June 2021. Jeremy was born in 1938 in Reading. Stimulated at school by the geography teaching of Robert W. Brooker—author of geographical texts—he went on to specialise in geography at the University of Reading. In 1954 the family moved to Amersham, to a large neo-Tudor house that featured in a later publication.

As an undergraduate at Reading, Jeremy developed his tennis skills and travelled widely to tournaments, building his interest in the specific character of places. His bachelor's dissertation was a survey of the Amersham/Chesham district, with a distinctly morphological flavour, unusual for the time. He developed this interest in his PhD thesis but added substantially more material on building characteristics, feeling that previous morphological work had focused too much on simplified street plans (Conzen & Oliveira, 2021, pp. 76–81). He retained links with Reading, where he was awarded a DSc in 1992.

His first academic post was at the University of Newcastle, where he met M.R.G. Conzen—whose influence, both scholarly and personal (they shared a pronounced but very dry sense of humour) profoundly shaped Jeremy's career. The systematic aspect and interlocking nature of Conzen's descriptive and analytical concepts, the precision of his writing, and intricate hand-drawn cartography were highly influential, even though these features ‘struck some urban geographers as downright intimidating’ (Conzen & Oliveira, 2021, pp. 76–81). Whitehand's own writing proved similarly concise but more accessible. In the Newcastle department he also met Susan Friedrich, whom he would later marry.

Whitehand tested Conzen's articulation of the urban fringe belt concept at the scale of a whole conurbation in a study of Tyneside, and this resulted in his first major publication. A move to the University of Glasgow (1966–1971) brought new opportunities, including demonstrating that urban fringe belts could be explained statistically through the application of bid-rent theory and building cycles. Fringe belts were to occupy him, in one way or another, for much of his career.

In 1971 he moved to the University of Birmingham, founding a highly successful Urban Morphology Research Group, rising to Professor of Urban Geography in 1991, and retiring in 2005. His teaching ranged from introductory cultural geography through historical geography to a third-year specialist course in urban morphology. This last course he kept deliberately small, so that the group could fit in a minibus; citing the need for a working knowledge of German if recruitment ever threatened that limit. He supervised 58 research degrees, instilling in his students a strong work ethic, attention to detail, quality and focus, and a wish to live up to his expectations. This led them to quick completions and Jeremy to large bills for coffee.

Jeremy was something of an ‘organisation person’: he joined, contributed, and got things done, in an usually quiet and understated, but effective, way. He held a number of Institute of British Geographers (IBG)/Royal Geographical Society (RGS) positions, including Council member (IBG 1977–1980, RGS 1994–1995), Editorial Committee/Publications Committee and equivalents (IBG 1977–1985, RGS 1981–1995), and IBG Special Publications Editorial Board (1979–1985, as Secretary from 1981). He served as editor of Area in its early years (1977–1980), and brought his sense of humour and focus on precision to both its contents and its production. The humour was shown in the publication of occasional items such as ‘A Nonconformist extract’ (SRE, 1977) while the precision was felt by virtually every author whose work he scrutinised and annotated (or deleted) in sharp pencil.

His networking abilities were evident at conferences, where he both ensured that his PhD students were widely introduced, and persuaded conference presenters to submit journal papers. This ability also led him, in the early 1990s, to work with colleagues across Europe and North America, working in geography, planning, architecture and history, to found the International Seminar on Urban Form—ISUF. From small invited seminars this has grown to a truly international organisation hosting major conferences and with nine active regional groups.

His editorial instinct led to the foundation of a new journal in 1997, on behalf of ISUF: Urban Morphology. He remained editor for 22 years, and many more authors saw that acuity and attention to detail, and benefited from careful guidance for the improvement of their papers even if they were ultimately rejected.

While Jeremy's own work focused on urban morphology and particularly fringe belts, he worked on town centres, suburbs, institutional campuses and more. A raft of papers, rich in concepts and detail, were neatly summarised in two books, both IBG Special Publications, in 1988 and 1991. The suburban work produced another book, Twentieth-century suburbs, in 2001. While deep in the local authority planning archives that underpinned this work he began another exploration of how these morphological phenomena came about, and this was his focus on agents and agency. This research approach led to broader considerations of relationships among agents of urban change, including the very geographical consideration of the diffusion of innovations in style and form from the metropolis to provincial centres and their suburbs.

Whitehand also began to consider conservation and planning processes as agents in the complex processes of urban change. This led to engagement with ideas of urban landscape management and urban design and, in particular, application of concepts and methods of geographical regionalisation to the systematic delineation of urban character areas. In many ways this was a clear development of Conzenian town-plan analysis. Whitehand's work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy and NERC—the latter because his interest in planning had led to the conceptual fusion of fringe belts, town planning and ecology/greenspace.

Following his formal retirement Whitehand remained active, and indeed he pushed forward with yet another research initiative. This was to incubate the development of urban morphology in China, which he did through international, interdisciplinary and comparative work. Links with Peking University in Beijing led to the formation of an Urban Morphology Research Group in its Department of Urban and Regional Planning. He continued with regular visits to China for fieldwork, was Honorary Professor at the University of Shanxi (2005–2008) and Urban Planning Consultant for Pingyao County in Shanxi Province (2006–2021). His geographical perspective was informing both Chinese geography and planning in both theoretical and practical ways.

It is fitting to consider the impact such a person can have on a wide but often inchoate realm of thought and work interpreting our built environments, especially as we approach what may be critical tipping points in Earth's history. Jeremy's view of urban processes was always grounded, open-minded, and endlessly enquiring. He developed and internationalised the study of urban form, changing it from what had been termed a ‘backwater of urban geography’ (Carter, 1984) to a vibrant discipline with international reach and impact. His influence was also spread not only by a post-retirement festschrift (Larkham & Conzen, 2014) but, unusually, a book dedicated to exploring the impact of the multiple directions of his urban research (Oliveira, 2019).

Jeremy's work and personality have sown productive seeds over the six full decades of his professional life. He was active to the very end, busy supervising PhD students, researching and writing papers, including a keynote paper (recorded owing to COVID restrictions), which was presented to an ISUF conference just days after his death. Jeremy Whitehand was liked and respected widely by friends, colleagues, and students alike. He will be sorely missed in the discipline and beyond.