Background
He was born on 11 October 1865 in Galashiels, Selkirkshire to parents Andrew Hunter Herbertson and Janet Matthewson.
He was born on 11 October 1865 in Galashiels, Selkirkshire to parents Andrew Hunter Herbertson and Janet Matthewson.
From 1886 to 1889 he studied in the University of Edinburgh, but he never gained a degree.
He went to school locally at Galashiels Academy and in Edinburgh at Edinburgh Institution. In 1892 he went with Patrick Geddes to Dundee to teach botany. in 1892 he was made a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. He then moved in 1892 to Fort William, Scotland to work on a metereological observatory on Ben Nevis.
In 1894 he moved to Manchester to become a lecturer on geography in the University of Manchester.
In 1898 he got a doctorate from University of Freiburg-im-Breisgau. In 1899 he moved to the University of Oxford to become a reader of geography.
He would become head of the geography department at Oxford in 1910. In 1908 he was made a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.
He died on July 15, 1915 in Radnage, Buckinghamshire.