Archive for September 2009
Making Maps
As its name suggests, the Ordnance Survey grew out of a military operation: specifically the attempt to control the Highlands of Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rebellion of 1746. A military engineer called Lieutenant Colonel David Watson was charged with conducting the survey under the command of the Duke of Cumberland. The map, which also features a standardisation of spelling and naming, hangs today in the British Museum in London – a picture of how a subjugating force learns about the terrain it must occupy and then conveys that information.
