Jay Appleton is a British geographer who proposed 'habitat theory' and advanced the notion of 'prospect-refuge'.

Biography

Jay was born in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 in December 1919. He moved to Stibbard, near Fakenham

Fakenham

Fakenham is a town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Wensum, some north east of King's Lynn, south west of Cromer, and north west of Norwich....

 in Norfolk, at the age of eighteen months. In 1940, he moved south to Diss

Diss

Diss is a town in Norfolk, England close to the border with the neighbouring East Anglian county of Suffolk.The town lies in the valley of the River Waveney, around a mere that covers . The mere is up to deep, although there is another of mud, making it one of the deepest natural inland lakes...

, but ten years later a university appointment took him back to Yorkshire, and he has lived in Cottingham

Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire

Cottingham is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies just to the north-west of the city of Kingston upon Hull...

 ever since.

Academic career

Appleton is an alumnus of the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and the University of Durham where he attended King's College, which is now Newcastle University. He retired in 1985 as an Emeritus Professor of Geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

 at Hull University.

In 1970, he wrote a report for the Countryside Commission

Countryside Commission

The Countryside Commission was a statutory body in England and Wales, and later in England only...

 on 'Disused railways in the countryside of England and Wales'.

In 1975, Appleton published The Experience of Landscape, in which he proposed the prospect-refuge theory of human aesthetics. The theory states that taste in art is 'an acquired preference for particular methods of satisfying inborn desires.' The two desires are for opportunity (prospect) and safety (refuge). Tracing these two desires gives us a means of understanding successful and enduring aesthetics, and the ability to predict the same.

Other work

During the early 1950s, he began writing Norfolk dialect

Norfolk dialect

The Norfolk dialect, also known as Broad Norfolk, is a dialect that was once, and to a great extent, still is spoken by those living in the county of Norfolk in England...

 stories and reading them from Birmingham on the Midland Region Programme of the BBC. More stories were specially written to mark the opening of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 studios at St Catherine’s Close in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

in 1958.

He is also a published poet.