J B Harley

J B Harley was a giant among late twentieth-century historians of cartography. His early research at the University of Birmingham was in historical geography, and it was from this that he developed his interest in maps, map-making and the cultural significance of maps. He taught first at the University of Liverpool and then at the University of Exeter. Hardworking and meticulous, he was also imaginative and could at times be deliberately provocative. Furthermore, he was an outstanding communicator. Brian Harley's approximately one hundred and fifty publications embraced many aspects of the mapping of Britain and the Americas, as well as a series of seminal methodological and epistemological papers. As an editor he was responsible for facsimile editions of several atlases and map series. With David Woodward, he conceived, guided and edited the first two volumes of The History of Cartography.

His publications will continue to be influential for many decades but, during his life, Brian Harley's impact was equally strong at the inter-personal level. He shared information and ideas with more than thirty co-authors, in the course of which he communicated to others something of his own elegant style. His international network of correspondents was enormous. Especially in the latter part of his career, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he encouraged and guided graduate students from several parts of the world. At this stage he was much in demand as a guest lecturer and he used his oratorical skills unstintingly to promote to all kinds of audiences the field to which he had devoted his life. He died when his career was still in its ascendancy. These memorial Research Fellowships are intended to assist others to develop further the field to which Brian Harley contributed so much and was influential in reshaping.

Click here to access a small booklet produced in celebration of Harley’s life and contribution to the history of cartography, by his friends and colleagues in 1992. Please refer to current information on these webpages to donate to the Trust or to apply for a Fellowship [this was mounted on the site in February 2017].