Making geography move: The Royal Geographical Society and the exchange of periodical knowledge, 1830–1900

Abstract This paper explores the decisions of the Royal Geographical Society's ( RGS ) Library and Map Committee in conditioning and constraining the circulation of Britain's first geographical periodical publication. Principally drawing on the committee's minutes in the last half of the nineteenth century, the paper unpicks the unwritten rules that shaped the flow of geographical knowledge to other institutions. As well as documenting the extent and reach of the RGS' s periodical, the minutes also reveal the places to which the journal did not travel and the reasons for limiting the movement of geographical ideas and information. Uncovering the journal's travels in this way makes several important contributions to the history of geography and the geographies of knowledge. First, it contributes to new understandings of the RGS and its actors in conditioning the circulation and accumulation of nineteenth‐century geographical knowledge. Second, it draws attention to the specificity of the periodical as a printed medium and illustrates its value in understanding the circulation of geography. Third, it makes clear the intricate processes that facilitate or disrupt the flow of geographical knowledge that should demand attention in the context of our modern‐day scholarly practice.