John Herbert Galloway
- 2021
John (‘Jock’) Herbert Galloway died on July 27, 2021 in Tweed, Ontario, after suffering several years with Alzheimer’s.
Jock, as he always preferred to be known, graduated with a BA in Geography from McGill University in Montreal in 1960, an MA in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961, and a PhD from University College London in 1965. His doctoral research, conducted under the supervision of Professor Clifford Darby, focused on the historical geography of Pernambuco in Northeastern Brazil, from 1770 to 1920. Jock was appointed a Lecturer at the University of Toronto, St. George in 1964, and then an Assistant Professor in 1965. He was promoted to Associate- and Full-Professor ranks in 1970 and 1977, respectively. Jock retired from the University in 2005 when he was appointed Professor Emeritus. During his many years at the University of Toronto, Jock was a devoted and much loved and respected member of the Department of Geography & Planning as well as at Victoria College where he was a long-time Fellow.
Jock’s research and publications focused on the historical geography of Brazil and the Caribbean, leading to his monograph, The Sugar Cane Industry. An historical geography from its origins to 1914 published by the Cambridge University Press in 1989. Exploring the global geographical diffusion of the sugar cane industry and its various branches, it is now considered a classic reference on the subject. Jock was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the American Geographical Society, and a member, among others, of the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) and the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. He served as Associate, Acting-Editor, and then Editor for the Canadian Geographer from 1966 to 1973, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Geography from 1974 to 1978 and again from 1984 to 1994. He was the Review Editor for the Americas for the same journal from 1978 to 1983. From the late 1980s to the 2000s, Jock served on editorial boards for other periodicals including Latin American Studies, and the Luso-Brazilian Review of the University of Wisconsin Press. Pursuing his interest in sugar and his links with similarly minded people around the world, from 1994 to 2005 he co-edited the World Sugar History Newsletter. Over his long academic career, Jock published numerous articles and chapters, and delivered dozens of symposia papers and invited lectures. He also received several awards from his peers, including the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the CAG, and an Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Toronto.
Jock will be remembered as a wonderful colleague and dedicated teacher. He was in personal life a Renaissance man, urbane, witty, multi-lingual, culturally engaged, and a great cook. Since his retirement, colleagues and students have often reminisced about seeing Jock in the hallways of Sidney Smith Hall, always dressed impeccably, and very often rushing with maps rolled under his arms, on his way to give a lecture. Jock will be remembered as a scholar as well as consummate gentleman who was always supportive of his colleagues and students.
5 August 2021