Book review: ‘Map of a Nation’ by Rachel Hewitt

Map of a Nation is an account of the military survey of Scotland (1747–1755) and the subsequent first trigonometrical mapping of Great Britain and Ireland by what would become the Ordnance Survey.

The surveys were carried out primarily for military and (in Ireland) taxation and administrative purposes, although some of the men involved clearly saw producing such maps as tying in with the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment.

Similar surveys were being carried out in France at around the same time, so the two teams collaborated briefly to take measurements across the English Channel. This allowed them to measure the difference in longitude and latitude between the bases of their two different co-ordinate systems in Greenwich and Paris, thereby allowing them to merge their previously incompatible maps.

The account contains short biographies of a host of characters, and some walk-on parts by the likes of Sir George Everest and William Wordsworth.

Recommended.