21 Facts About Halford Mackinder

Sir Halford John Mackinder was a British geographer, academic and politician, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy.

Halford Mackinder was the first Principal of University Extension College, Reading from 1892 to 1903, and Director of the London School of Economics from 1903 to 1908.

Halford Mackinder was a strong proponent of treating both physical geography and human geography as a single discipline.

Halford Mackinder served as President of the Oxford Union in 1883.

Halford Mackinder received a degree in biology in 1883 and one in modern history the next year.

Halford Mackinder later became chairman of the GA from 1913 to 1946 and served as its President from 1916 to 1917.

At Oxford, Halford Mackinder was the driving force behind the creation of a School of Geography in 1899.

Halford Mackinder was a member of the Coefficients dining club, set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb, which brought together social reformers and advocates of national efficiency.

In 1904, Halford Mackinder gave a paper on "The Geographical Pivot of History" at the Royal Geographical Society, in which he formulated the Heartland Theory.

Possibly disappointed at not getting a full chair, Halford Mackinder left Oxford and became director of the London School of Economics in the same year.

Halford Mackinder stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal Unionist in a by-election for Hawick Burghs in 1909.

Halford Mackinder was elected to Parliament in January 1910 as Liberal Unionist member for the Glasgow Camlachie constituency and was defeated in 1922 as a Unionist.

Halford Mackinder was knighted in the 1920 New Year Honours for his services as an MP.

Halford Mackinder was anti-Bolshevik, and as British High Commissioner in Southern Russia in late 1919 and early 1920, during the Russian Civil War, he stressed the need for Britain to continue her support to the White Russian forces, which he attempted to unite.

Halford Mackinder reiterated and expanded his Heartland view of the world, suggesting that the Atlantic Ocean would be jumped, with North America's influence pulled into the region by its use of Britain as a "moated aerodrome".

Halford Mackinder was contemporary of the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen, born three years later, who like Halford Mackinder was a conservative member of the national parliament from 1910 until 1922.

Halford Mackinder's work paved the way for the establishment of geography as a distinct discipline in the United Kingdom.

Halford Mackinder himself became Professor of Geography at the University of London in 1923.

Halford Mackinder is often credited with introducing two new terms into the English language: "manpower" and "heartland".

Halford Mackinder's work was an influence on Karl Haushofer, for which Halford Mackinder was maligned after World War II.

Halford Mackinder's ideas experienced a revival of interest in post-Cold War former-Soviet Central Asia, in particular the republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.