Putting Britain on the map

Ordnance Survey owes much to the remarkable work of William Mudge, who died 200 years ago this month.

- MARTYN BAGULEY

Two hundred years ago, on 16 April 1820, William Mudge died. Not a name that resonates like those of some of his contemporaries – Byron, Wordsworth, Darwin – but one that should be better known for, during his relatively short life, he put much of Britain literally on the map.

Since 1518, map-making in Britain had been a minor responsibility of what was called the Board of Ordnance (from the French word ordonnance, which relates to the organisation of military affairs). Distinct from the Army, it was an independent military body that operated from the Tower of London where, based in a drawing room in the White Tower, a talented, small band of both military and civilian draughtsmen, some as young as 11, busied themselves with the intricacies of military surveying, trigonometry and geometry, all fundamental for map-making.