Ernst Georg Ravenstein, who published in English as E.G. Ravenstein, was Professor of Geography at Bedford College, 1882–83, and in 1902 became the first to receive the Victoria gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for "his efforts during 40 years to introduce scientific methods into the cartography of the United Kingdom."
Ravenstein was born to a family of cartographers. When he was 18 years old he became a pupil of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann. After moving to England, Ravenstein became a naturalized British Subject and was in the service of the Topographical Department of the British War Office for 20 years (1855–75).
His statistics and projections were much respected and used as a basis for official planning at the time; he had eErnst Georg Ravenstein, who published in English as E.G. Ravenstein, was Professor of Geography at Bedford College, 1882–83, and in 1902 became the first to receive the Victoria gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for "his efforts during 40 years to introduce scientific methods into the cartography of the United Kingdom."
Ravenstein was born to a family of cartographers. When he was 18 years old he became a pupil of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann. After moving to England, Ravenstein became a naturalized British Subject and was in the service of the Topographical Department of the British War Office for 20 years (1855–75).
His statistics and projections were much respected and used as a basis for official planning at the time; he had even predicted that human population would grow beyond the earth's capacity by the mid-20th century. (Subsequent developments in agriculture and fertilizers have altered the basis of that projection.)
He established a theory of human migration in the 1880s that still forms the basis for modern migration theory. It considered the implications of distance and different types of migrant, with women more likely than men to migrate within the country of their birth but less likely than men to leave the country of their birth.
In 1861 Ravenstein established the German Gymnastics Society, a sporting association, in London. It promoted gymnastics and held annual athletic competitions, at a purpose-built German Gymnasium in St Pancras and at The Crystal Palace. With William Penny Brookes and John Hulley, he was a founder member of the National Olympian Association in 1866, which promoted an annual series of sporting events across the country, inspired by the Olympic Games of Much Wenlock. He published a handbook on gymnastics in 1867.
Although he spent most of his adult life in England, with a house at Lorn Rd, Lambeth, he died in Germany on 13 March 1913.
His Systematic Atlas (1884) put into practice many his ideas as to methods of teaching cartography. The Philips's World Atlas was published with Ravenstein's plates and statistics for several decades. His Map of Equatorial Africa (1884) was the most notable map of a large part of the continent on a large scale that had been made up to that time, and he immediately developed it as new discoveries were made in Central and Eastern Africa....more
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