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History of
Ordnance Survey
When Domino's Pizza® launched its on-screen TV ordering service,
they put Ordnance Survey's digital mapping data at the heart of
their high-tech delivery system. But peacetime services like this
are a world away from Ordnance Survey's turbulent eighteenth-century
origins.
Revolution!
England was squeezed between rebellion in Scotland and war with
France when King George II commissioned a military survey of the
Scottish highlands in 1746. The job fell to William Roy, a
far-sighted young engineer who understood the strategic importance
of accurate maps.
Walk into Ordnance
Survey's Southampton headquarters and you'll see Roy's name engraved
on the curved glass entrance doors, yet his vision of a national
military survey wasn't implemented until after his death in 1790.
By then Europe was in
turmoil, and there were real fears that the French Revolution might
sweep across the English Channel. Realising the danger, the
government ordered its defence ministry – the Board of Ordnance – to
begin a survey of England's vulnerable southern coasts.
Military Mapping
In June 1791, the Board purchased a huge new Ramsden theodolite, and
surveyors began mapping southern Britain from a baseline that Roy
himself had measured several years earlier.
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The first one-inch
map of Kent was published in 1801, and a similar map of Essex
followed – just as Nelson's victory at Trafalgar made invasion
less likely!
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Within twenty
years about a third of England and Wales had been mapped at the
one-inch scale. If that seems slow in these days of aerial
surveys and global positioning, spare a thought for Major Thomas
Colby – later Ordnance Survey's longest serving Director General
– who walked 586 miles in 22 days on a reconnaissance in 1819.
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Ramsden Theodolite |
A Taxing Business
In 1824, Parliament ordered Colby and most of his staff to Ireland,
to produce a detailed six inch to the mile valuation survey.
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Colby designed
specialist measuring equipment, established systematic
collection of place names, and reorganised the map-making
process to produce clear, accurate plans. But Colby the
perfectionist also travelled with his men, helped to build
camps, and arranged mountain-top feasts with huge plum puddings
at the end of each surveying season. |
Thomas Colby
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Building trig pillars
Soon after
the first Irish maps began to appear in the mid-1830s, the demands
of the Tithe Commutation Act provoked calls for similar six-inch
surveys in England and Wales. The government prevaricated but, by
then, there was a new power in the land.
Driven by steam
This was the era of railway mania and if the one-inch map was
unsuitable for calculating tithes, it was virtually useless for the
new breed of railway engineers. To make matters worse, mapping of
England and Scotland remained incomplete and, in 1840, the Treasury
agreed that the remaining areas should be surveyed at the six-inch
scale.
Photographic building
Now, surveyors needed greater access than ever before; and so, in
1841, the Ordnance Survey Act gave them a legal right to 'enter into
and upon any land' for survey purposes.
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London's
burning!
A few months later Ordnance Survey's cramped Tower of London
offices were at the centre of a national catastrophe when fire
swept through the Grand Storehouse, threatening to engulf the
Crown Jewels in the Martin Tower. |
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Miraculously, the
Jewels were saved, and most of Ordnance Survey's records and
instruments were also carried to safety. But the blaze highlighted
the Survey's desperate need for more office space, and prompted a
move to Southampton.
The scene was now set for two decades of wrangling over scales.
Throughout this period, Victorian reforming zeal was creating an
acute need for accurate mapping. The issue was settled piecemeal
until, by 1863, scales of six inches and twenty-five inches to the
mile had been approved for mountain and moorland, and rural areas
respectively. The one-inch map was retained, and detailed plans at
as much as ten feet to the mile were introduced for built-up areas.
A new technology
By now, Major-General Sir Henry James – perhaps Ordnance Survey's
most eccentric and egotistical Director General – was midway through
his twenty-one year term. James quickly saw how maps could be
cheaply and quickly enlarged or reduced using the new science of
photography, and he designed an elaborate glass studio at
Southampton for processing photographic plates.
Henry James
James planted his name on everything he touched, and later claimed
to have invented photozincography, a photographic method of
producing printing plates. In fact, the process had been developed
by two of his staff.
War and
peace
By 1895 the twenty-five inch survey was complete. The twentieth
century brought cyclists and motorists swarming onto the roads, and
the new Director General, Colonel Charles Close, prepared to exploit
this expanding leisure market. But by now, the tide of history was
sweeping Ordnance Survey back to its roots.
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As Britain entered
the First World War, surveyors, draughtsmen and printers from
Ordnance Survey were posted overseas. Working in appalling
conditions alongside the troops, surveyors plotted the lines of
trenches and, for the first time, aerial photography was used to
capture survey information. |
Charles Close
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After the war, Sir
Charles, as he now was, returned to his marketing strategy and
appointed a professional artist to produce eye-catching covers for
the one-inch maps. Ellis Martin's classic designs boosted sales to
record levels, but the war had taken its toll; behind their bright
new covers, the maps were increasingly out of date.
A landmark review
In an uncanny echo of the mid-nineteenth century, a whole raft of
new legislation brought demands for accurate, up-to-date mapping.
Matters came to a head in 1935, and the Davidson Committee was
established to review Ordnance Survey's future. That same year, a
far-sighted new Director General, Major-General Malcolm MacLeod,
launched the retriangulation of Great Britain.
Malcolm
MacLeod
Surveyors began an Olympian task, building the now familiar concrete
triangulation pillars on remote hilltops throughout Britain. Deep
foundations were dug by hand, and staff dragged heavy loads of
materials over isolated terrain by lorry, packhorse and sheer brute
force.
The Davidson
Committee's final report set Ordnance Survey on course for the 21st
century. The National Grid reference system was introduced, using
the metre as its measurement. An experimental new 1:25,000 scale map
was launched, leaving only the one-inch unscathed. It was almost
forty years before this popular map was superseded by the 1:50,000
scale series, first proposed by William Roy more than two centuries
earlier.
Bombed out!
In 1939, war intervened once again. The Royal Artillery was now
responsible for its own field surveys, but over a third of Ordnance
Survey's civilian staff were called up, and its printing presses
were kept busy with war production.
Bombed out!
It wasn't a soft option. Enemy bombing devastated Southampton in
November 1940 and destroyed most of Ordnance Survey's city centre
offices. Staff were dispersed to other buildings, and to temporary
accommodation at Chessington. But the military appetite remained
insatiable - the Normandy landings alone devoured 120 million maps!
Coming home
After the war, Ordnance Survey returned to Davidson's agenda; the
retriangulation was completed, and metric maps began to appear along
National Grid sheet lines. Aerial survey helped speed up the new
continuous revision strategy, and up-to-date drawing and printing
techniques were introduced.
Aerial
Photography
But the organisation was still fragmented, scattered across southern
England in a battered collection of worn-out buildings. All that
changed in 1969, when Ordnance Survey moved to its present,
purpose-built headquarters on the outskirts of Southampton. Four
years later, the first computerised large-scale maps appeared; the
digital age had begun.
E-volution
Ordnance Survey digitised the last of some 230,000 maps in 1995,
making Britain the first country in the world to complete a
programme of large-scale electronic mapping. Computers have
transformed the map-making process, and electronic data is now
routinely available to customers within 24 hours of being surveyed.
E-volution
The public still knows Ordnance Survey for its comprehensive range
of printed leisure maps, yet electronic data now accounts for some
80% of Ordnance Survey's turnover. Independent estimates show that
the national mapping agency's data now underpins up to £136
billion-worth of economic activity in Britain – everything from
crime-fighting and conservation to marketing and mobile phones.
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