Description

Admin History:

Jay Henry Appleton was born on 28 December 1919 in Headingley, Leeds but moved with his parents to Norfolk aged only 18 months. He was educated at Oxford University, graduating in 1940, and King's College, University of Durham (later Newcastle University). He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, and instead of undertaking military service he worked in bomb disposal in London with the Royal Engineers.

In the early 1950s he took up a post as a geography lecturer at University College Hull (later the University of Hull) and remained there until his retirement in 1985, having achieved promotion to a Professorship. During his career he focused on Human Geography, particularly transportation. In 1962 he published his PhD thesis under the title 'The Geography of Communications in Great Britain', and in 1970 compiled a report entitled 'Disused railways in the countryside of England and Wales' for the Countryside Commission. Another of his major publications was 'The Experience of Landscape' (1975) in which he expounded his 'prospect-refuge theory' of human aesthetics. He was also a proponent of 'habitat theory'.

Alongside his professional career, during the 1950s, he wrote Norfolk dialect stories for the BBC Midland Region Programme. Further stories were also commissioned for the opening of the Norwich BBC studios in 1958. After his retirement, he published a series of poetry books and in 2014 worked with the landscape photographer Simon Warner in producing an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society. He died on 27 April 2015.

Description:

Includes papers relating to Professor Appleton's academic career including a large number of subject files, typescripts of various publications, publication offprints, manuscript notes and correspondence, as well as typescripts, correspondence and other papers relating to his short story writing for the BBC in the 1950s and poems written after his retirement. There is also material relating to various exhibitions, relating to landscape, on which he worked after his retirement.