Professor Charles Withers FRSE

Charles W. J. Withers is Professor Emeritus of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the British Academy and a former Geographer Royal for Scotland (2015-2022). A former Chair of the RSE Research Awards Committee and of the Society’s Medals Committee, he helped streamline the Society’s programme of research awards and making changes to the named medals.
He works on the historical geographies of science and of exploration. His research examines how ‘geographical thinking’ is shaped by the sites in which it occurs and by the processes and forms of its representation (writing, exploring, mapping). He is the author or editor of 30 books and over 150 papers and essays in edited collections. Recent publications include the award-winning Zero Degrees: Geographies of the Prime Meridian (Harvard University Press, 2017) and Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger (Birlinn, 2022), which was short-listed for the Saltire Society History Book of the Year in 2023.

Fellowship list