Richard Chorley

Richard Chorley (1927-2002), British geographer best known as a leader of the methodological revolution in British geography during the 1960s, and for his use of systems theory as a method of geographical analysis. Born in Minehead, Somerset, he was educated at Oxford University prior to going to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship. He joined the Department of Geography at Cambridge University in 1958, becoming a lecturer in 1962, a reader in 1970, and professor of geography in 1974—a position he held until 1994, when he became emeritus professor. A physical geographer with a wide range of interests, he was made the first honorary member of the British Geomorphological Research Group in 1974.

During the 1960s, together with Peter Haggett, another important figure in modern British geography, Chorley pioneered the introduction to Britain of a positivist theoretical approach to geography based on spatial analysis, quantitative techniques, and the development of explanatory models. In his work with Haggett, he extended the scope of spatial analysis beyond its human geography origins to include physical networks. Models in Geography (1967), which they edited, is considered one of the key texts of modern geography. Through the Madingley Hall lectures of the mid-1960s the two also paved the way for the introduction of modern geographical education into schools and colleges. Chorley’s interest in a systems approach to geography, which also first developed during the 1960s, reflected its utility as a framework for analysing and explaining the interrelationships between human and environmental phenomena, thus providing a uniting concept between physical and human geography. An Introduction to Geographical Hydrology (1969) exemplifies this approach, as does Physical Geography: A Systems Approach (1971), which he published with B. A. Kennedy. A seminal work that attempts to demonstrate how physical geography might assume new significance when treated in terms of systems theory and statistical analysis, it introduced the language and devices of electronic circuitry—inputs, outputs, feedback, storages—to geographical analysis. Although the positivist emphasis on general quantitative models was attacked by the new school of radical human geographers from the late 1970s, statistical analysis and systems theory still play an important role in geomorphology, hydrology, and other aspects of physical geography.

Chorley’s other writings include: with Haggett, Frontiers in Geographical Teaching (1965) and Network Analysis in Geography (1967); with Robert J. Bennett, Environmental Systems Philosophy, Analysis, and Control (1978); with Roger G. Barry, Atmosphere, Weather and Climate (1968, 1998); and with R. P. Beckinsale and A. J. Dunn, The History of the Study of Landforms (1964, 1973, 1991), an authoritative three-volume history of geomorphology.