Aberystwyth University Professor Emeritus John William Aitchison has died, aged 84.

Born in Liverpool in 1942, Professor Aitchison first came to Aberystwyth to study in 1960. He was appointed to the staff of the Geography department in 1967 and promoted to Senior Lecturer and Reader in 1983 and 1987.

In 1988 he was awarded the Gregynog Chair in Human Geography, an honour made more special by the fact he was taught by two previous holders of the Gregynog chair, Professor E. G. Bowen and Professor Harold Carter.

In 1976 he gained a Leverhulme Fellowship in European Studies and spent a year in Paris, working with academics and consultants at the Sorbonne on rural land use and planning issues. His collaboration with French geographers continued over many years.

His work on common land in Wales resulted in a Prince of Wales award for its special contribution to the understanding and appreciation of the Welsh environment. The five-year project evaluated the agricultural, environmental, and public amenity functions of registered common land in Wales and came to be known as the Domesday Book of Welsh Commons.

In the early 90s he set up the International Centre for Protected Landscapes – one of the first distance-learning master’s programmes in the university, relating to protected landscape management worldwide. The distance course which later became a residential course attracted professionals and students from all over the world. These students would later take up prominent positions in governmental fields in their own countries.

The 1990s also saw him working alongside Professor Harold Carter on the Welsh language, examining patterns of change in the language over recent decades. Their joint research has established itself as an indispensable tool for the analysis of Welsh-speaking communities, offering cautionary advice on how language revitalisation may be attempted.

Professor Aitchison was born on 7 April 1942. He died on 12 May 2026.