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Sir Henry Clifford DarbyCBEFBA (7 February 1909 – 14 April 1992),[1] commonly known as Sir Clifford Darby, was a Welsh historical geographer and academic. He was a key figure in the establishment of historical geography as a subject in British academia, and occupied several chairs of geography.
Born in Resolven in south Wales on 7 February 1909, he was the son of an engineer and attended the Neath County School before going up to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, on a scholarship; after initially reading English, he switched to geography and graduated with firsts in parts one and two of the Tripos. He subsequently completed a PhD, the first to be awarded in geography at Cambridge; and, after a year as a university lecturer in geography, he took up a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained until 1945. During the Second World War, Darby was also commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps before taking charge of the Admiralty's Geographical Handbook Centre in 1941. In 1945, he was appointed John Rankin Professor of Geography at the University of Liverpool and in 1949 moved to University College London to be Professor of Geography. He returned to the University of Cambridge in 1966 as Professor of Geography (1931), retiring in 1976.[2]
ある追悼記事にもあるように、「クリフォード・ダービーは、20世紀半ばの60年間にわたり、英国地理学界で傑出した人物であり、国内でも一流の学者であった」[ 3 ] 。彼は歴史地理学の研究で名声を確立し、ドゥームズデイ・ブックを資料として広く利用した[3]。彼は英国地理学会会長（1961年）および英国地理学全国委員会委員長（1973～78年）を務め、1967年に英国学士院フェローに選出され（ 1972 ～ 73年には副会長）、1975年には王立地理学会名誉フェローとなった。数々の名誉博士号や学術賞を授与されたほか、1988年にCBEに叙され、3年後にナイトの称号を授与された[ 4 ] 。彼は1992年に死去した[ 5 ] 。