The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps is pleased to announce the publication of its latest book:

Richard Oliver, THE ORDNANCE SURVEY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: MAPS MONEY AND THE GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT, London: The Charles Close Society 2014, 25.5 cm, pp xxvii, 607, 16 pp of colour plates, hardback, ISBN 978-1-870-598-32-3, normal price in United Kingdom GBP 45.00 [including postage and packing]

[Orders from outside the United Kingdom will incur a greater cost, due to shipping charges]

To order direct from the Charles Close Society, please go to:

http://www.charlesclosesociety.org/publications

ABSTRACT:

Whilst the origins of the Ordnance Survey (OS) are well-known, in a mixture of late 18^th century geodetic activity and military topographic survey, until now its development during much of the century after 1815 has been less intensively studied. This book describes how the OS changed from a small organisation concentrating on triangulation and one-inch mapping, firstly to one making six-inch mapping in Ireland for taxation reform, and then in Britain, and then how it came to adopt the 1:2500 scale as standard, with urban areas mapped at 1:500. The explanation for this includes some technical and user considerations, but also includes political and administrative elements. Although by 1860 the 1:2500 was settled in principle, in practice there were continuing difficulties with finance, which made for problems with up-to-dateness and led in 1894 to the dropping of the 1:500 scale. A resurvey of Ireland at 1:2500 began in 1887 and was completed in 1914 – by which time the fragmenting of the OS between Britain and Ireland was in prospect.

The illustrations include both portraits of nearly all the Directors of the OS up to 1914 – several of which have not been published before – and a wide variety of map extracts.