Harold Fullard Collection of Atlases

Harold Fullard was Cartographic Director of George Philip, publishers, and past chair of the International Cartographic Association Publications Committee.

Harold Fullard was Cartographic Director of George Philip, publishers, and past chair of the International Cartographic Association Publications Committee. He was also external examiner for the Diploma in Cartography at Oxford Polytechnic from 1964-1982.

Following his retirement, his personal collection of atlases, textbooks and journals, assembled over 50 years, was offered for sale. This coincided with the celebration of a quarter of a century of cartographic teaching at Oxford Polytechnic and an appeal was made to present and former students, staff and organisations involved in professional mapping and related activities to enable the Cartography Unit to purchase the collection. Donations were received from some 150 former students and generous contributions from 15 commercial organisations who are active in the mapping industry and/or had been supportive of teaching efforts during the previous 25 years.

The quarter of a century was celebrated formally with a 25th Anniversary Cartographic Reunion, held on 15th September, 1989 and attended by more than 120 Diploma and Degree students. Purchase of the collection serves as a tangible and permanent reminder of this occasion and the teaching of cartography at Oxford Brookes.

The collection was deposited in the Oxford Polytechnic, later Oxford Brookes University, Library in 1989 as a 'maintained reference collection'. It consisted initially of more than 400 internationally published atlases and a similar quantity of other relevant materials, providing an invaluable source of reference and research for future student generations. Since that time the collection has been integrated with the University's collection, the whole, now numbering some 1,200 items, being maintained and added to as the Harold Fullard Collection of Atlases.

The collection is catalogued on Library Search and can be accessed in the Special Collections Reading Room.