Philip Eden, who earned his BA in Geography in 1972 and his MSc in Geography in 1973, was a prominent British weather journalist and weather historian.
His journey as a radio weather presenter commenced at LBC, the then London station, in 1983. Later, from 1994 to 2005, he served as the chief network weather presenter for BBC Radio 5 Live. Eden contributed a weekly column to the Sunday Telegraph from 1986 until 2015 and authored several books focusing on British weather and climate.
From 2007 to 2009, Philip Eden held the position of Vice President at the Royal Meteorological Society. In 2000, he was honoured with the society's Gordon Manley Weather Prize for his exceptional contributions to weather-related publications and public understanding of meteorology and oceanography.
During his lifetime, Eden established the Eden Observatory Trust, aiming to perpetuate the meteorological record from his climatological station at Whipsnade in Bedfordshire. Unfortunately, due to illness, he couldn't continue the record and passed away in January 2018. In his trust, it was specified that the remaining funds were to be gifted to the Department of Geography at the University of Birmingham. The sum was augmented by Philip's brothers, David and John Eden, resulting in a substantial bequest to the university. A ceremony commemorating Philip Eden took place at the University of Birmingham on 8 September 2023.
Following discussions between the University, Philip’s family, and the surviving Trustees of the Eden Observatory Trust, it was decided to utilise the gift in three ways:
- Establishing The Philip Eden Prize in Applied Meteorology and Climatology, a £500 annual award to the top-performing student on the MSc Applied Meteorology and Climatology course at Birmingham.
- Creating The Philip Eden Postgraduate Scholarship, offering a one-off sum of £1,000 to a high-achieving University of Birmingham undergraduate applying for the MSc Applied Meteorology and Climatology course.
- Contributing to a data rescue project to collect, catalogue, digitise and publish Birmingham’s weather records, including the long record from Edgbaston Observatory (1894–1979, with sub-daily synoptic observations from 1923).
The School of Geography, Life and Environmental Sciences have expressed their gratitude for the gift: “We have long talked about the need for a prize on our master’s course and now, for the first time in its 60-year history, we finally have one - all thanks to the generosity of the Eden family.”
Philip's generosity and final wishes ensure that the future generation of meteorologists will benefit from prizes and scholarships in his honour.