**Professor Eva G R Taylor 1879-1966** In 1959 a group of distinguished scholars established an annual lecture in honour of Professor Emeritus Eva G R Taylor, the first female professor geography, on the occasion of her 80th birthday on 22 June 1959. The sponsoring organisations, amongst others, were the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the Hakluyt Society ( HS), the Society for Nautical Research (SNR) and the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN). These four Societies have arranged over 40 lectures since then to be given by scholars of any nationality and in the branches of knowledge to which she made great contributions. Her fields were historical geography, especially the history of nautical science, of navigation and of cartographical ideas and discoveries. She held the chair of geography at Birkbeck College London University for many years and wrote extensively for the Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Mariner’s Mirror,The Geographical Journal, Imago Mundi and other periodicals. In 2010 the late Professor Bill Mead recalled his first encounter with her. Her unconventional use of a walking stick seems to have stuck in his mind when he recalled vividly how she used to point it at the students when asking a question as well as using it to hail taxis or even used it to hook Professor Darby’s leg to join her a taxi from a crowd of people waiting. To look at she was about 5’ 5’’ tall, perhaps eight stone and having a pinkish complexion, no make-up and light brown hair and she wore a narrow brimmed hat, raincoat and laced shoes. She had three boys (one died) and was the partner of Herbert Dunhill, brother of the founder of the pipe and tobacco firm Alfred Dunhill. Sarah Tyacke recollects that with the papers deposited in the British Library by Eila Campbell in 1981 there was a pipe, no doubt fondly kept by her. She was a decidedly unconventional and a great scholar. Her publications were prolific. Among her books were Tudor Geography (1930) and numerous editions for the Hakluyt Society (1932- 63) including The original writings… of the two Richard Hakluyts (1935) and The haven finding Art (1956). As Dr Helen Wallis, Map Librarian at the British Library (1968 – 86), said in 1967 in a commemorative appreciation of her work, ‘Her writings were characterized by the extensive use of original sources and documentary evidence and they were always a delight to read.’ For many later specialists it is her two monumental volumes on the mathematical practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England (1954) and then those of Hanoverian England (1966) which stand out as seminal in terms in demonstrating the range and depth of scientific innovation and knowledge across England during those centuries; from the obscure artisans who made the instruments and taught mathematics, to luminaries like Hooke, Newton and Flamsteed. The Eva G R Taylor lectures celebrate her own breadth of scholarship and show- case current research in all the historical scientific fields to which she devoted her life. Biographical publications about her and her personal papers ‘Eva G R Taylor’ in Journal of the Institute of Navigation vol 20.no.1 Jan, 1967 p. 94-101. A collection of commemorative articles. Eila M J Campbell, ‘Geography at Birkbeck College, University of London, with particular reference to J F Unstead and E. G. R. Taylor ‘ in British geography 1918-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p.45-57. Peter de Clercq, ‘A chronicle of lesser men. E.G.R. Taylor and her mathematical practitioners of England.’ Bulletin of the Scientific Instruments Society, no 81, 2004, p. 31-33. Peter de Clercq, The life and work of E.G.R. Taylor (1879-1966) author of The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England and The Mathematical Practitioners of Hanoverian England. Updated and annotated version of the EGR Taylor lecture given at the RGS on 13 Oct 2005. The Journal of the Hakluyt Society (www.hakluyt.com/journal_index.htm), Feb,2007. Avril Maddrell, Complex locations: women’s geographical work in the UK 1850-1970 (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) pp.411. E.G.R Taylor’s correspondence and papers 1929 -1966 are held in the British Library Add MS 69466-90 and at Add MS 71872-4. (London, Sarah Tyacke, co-ordinator of the lectures in succession to Ann Savours[Shirley])