Article

Andrew Hill Clark

Published Online January 10, 2008

Last Edited December 13, 2013

Andrew Hill Clark, historical geographer (b at Fairford, Man 29 Apr 1911; d at Madison, Wisc 21 May 1975). Son of a Baptist medical missionary, Clark was educated at McMaster and University of Toronto where he studied with geographer Griffith Taylor and economic historian Harold Innis.

Clark, Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill Clark, historical geographer (b at Fairford, Man 29 Apr 1911; d at Madison, Wisc 21 May 1975). Son of a Baptist medical missionary, Clark was educated at McMaster and University of Toronto where he studied with geographer Griffith Taylor and economic historian Harold Innis. In 1938 he moved to Berkeley to work with cultural geographer Carl Sauer. His doctoral thesis, a study of the colonization of New Zealand by people, plants and animals, introduced his lifelong interest in the migration of Europeans to midlatitude environments overseas. Professor of geography at University of Wisconsin from 1951 until his death, Clark directed a vigorous graduate program, wrote numerous books and articles, and became one of the best-known and most influential geographers of his day. His research focused on the early settlement of Canada, particularly of the Maritimes, whence his people came. With former students and friends scattered throughout Canadian universities, he was a founder of Canadian historical geography.

His principal books are The Invasion of New Zealand by People, Plants, and Animals: The South Island (1949), Three Centuries and the Island: A Historical Geography of Settlement and Agriculture in Prince Edward Island, Canada (1959), and Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (1968).