Mackinder, Halford John: - SIR HALFORD JOHN MACKINDER (1861-1947) was a British political geographer and academic, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of geopolitics and geostrategy. He was the first Principal of University Extension College, Reading, from 1892 to 1903, in 1895 a founder of the London School of Economics, and the Member of Parliament for Glasgow Camlachie from 1910 to 1922. From 1923, he was Professor of Geography at the London School of Economics.