Monica Cole

Monica Mary Cole (5 May 1922 – 8 January 1994) was an English geographer and lecturer. She was appointed geography lecturer at the University of Cape Town in 1947 before joining the staff of the University of the Witwatersrand's Department of Geography the following year. Cole became a senior lecturer at Keele University in 1951 and was appointed Chair of Geography at her alma mater Bedford College, London in 1964. She resigned her position in 1975 and was made Director of Research in Geobotany, Terrain Analysis, and Related Resource Use, which she held until her retirement in 1987. Cole was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Murchison Award in 1987. Following her death, the society established a research travel grant in her name, from funding left to it by her.

Early life Cole was born to the bank clerk William Henry Parnall Cole and his wife Dorothy Mary Thomas on 5 May 1922, in Clapham Common, London. She was the oldest daughter in the family and attended Wimbledon County Grammar School from 1934 to 1940. Cole excelled in sports and was recognised as a polyglot. Between 1940 and 1943, Cole worked as a research assistant for the Ministry of Town and Country Planning from 1944 to 1945, By the time she joined the staff of the Department of Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1948 she had become highly interested in African savannas, particularly the constraints of land-use choice from environmental constraints and management. The Archives of the Royal Holloway, University of London holds a collection of papers relating to Cole. They include her personal papers and objects connected to her career as a geographer between 1967 and 1970.