William Roy

Early life and family Roy was born at Milton Head in Carluke parish in South Lanarkshire on 4 May 1726. His father was a factor in the service of the Gordons/Hamiltons of Hallcraig, as well as an elder of the Kirk. His grandfather had held a similar position as factor, and his uncle acted in that capacity for the Lockharts of Lee. Thus Roy grew up in an environment where making land surveys and using maps was part of the daily business. He was educated in Carluke parish school and then Lanark Grammar School. There is no record of a further education such as that enjoyed by his younger brother James. The next few years of his life are poorly documented. Owen and Pilbeam claim that "Some time after 1738 (when Roy was 12) he moved to Edinburgh and gained experience of surveying and making plans, probably as a civilian draughtsman at the office of the Board of Ordnance at Edinburgh Castle." It is possible that he may have been employed there as a boy because it was normal procedure for the board to employ "cadets" aged ten or eleven who were trained to become civilian surveyors and draughtsmen. Roy was certainly associated with the board by 1746 (aged 20), for he was the author of an official map of Culloden made soon after the battle. As an employee of the board he would have come to notice of Lieutenant-Colonel David Watson, Deputy Quartermaster-General of the Military District of North Britain for the board, whose headquarters was in Edinburgh. The terms of Roy's employment are unknown but must have some opportunity to undertake private surveys for he was reported as a respected land surveyor employed by the Callander family at their Craigforth estate near Stirling prior to his work for the military. Roy maintained his connections to his birthplace and the people living there. A servant for the Lockharts of Lee recalled his visits there over time, as his national reputation grew. She noted that at first he would dine in the servants hall, in later years he would dine with the family, and later still he would be seated at the right hand of the Laird. pillar, a type of trig point. The inscription reads "Here stood Miltonhead the birthplace of Major-General William Roy 4th May 1726 - 30th June 1790 from whose military map of Scotland made in 1747 - 1755 grew the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain". Principal sources • Lee (1885–1900) Dictionary of National Biography (1900 edition). • The early years of the Ordnance Survey. First published in 1924. Includes some of Roy's letters. • Map of a Nation: a biography of the Ordnance Survey. • Ordnance Survey, map makers to Britain since 1791. Available online. • A History of the Ordnance Survey. The official account. References to original papers. Available online. • History of the Corps of Royal Engineers. Available online. ==Roy as surveyor and soldier==

The survey of Scotland commissioned a military survey of the Highlands, and Watson was placed in charge, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, but it fell to Roy "to begin, and afterwards to have a considerable share in, the execution of that map", now known as ''The Duke of Cumberland's Map''. Roy was without any military rank at this time but Watson appointed him as an assistant to the quartermaster to provide him some seniority over the group of (typically) six soldiers who travelled with him: an NCO, two end markers, two chainmen and a batman. Eventually there were six teams conducting surveys by traverses of the country with the objects to the side of the line recorded by sketches and compass directions. The Highlands were covered by 1752, but the survey was extended to the lowlands for another three years, until 1755, when most of the engineer surveyors were posted to war stations. In the introduction to the 1885 account of the measurement of the Hounslow baseline Roy writes that the map remained "in an unfinished state ... and is to be considered as a magnificent military sketch rather than a very accurate map of a country ... (and) it would have been completed, and many of its imperfections no doubt remedied, but for the breaking out of war in 1755." Military appointments Throughout the Survey of Scotland, Roy was a civilian assistant to David Watson the deputy quartermaster-general, but in 1755 the survey was terminated by the outbreak of the Seven Years' War with France and the consequent redeployment of personnel to more pressing posts in both the regular army and the Board of Ordnance. In the same year the engineers of the board were formed into the Corps of Engineers. The board officers were members of both structures, for they would be deployed with the army regiments for specialist duties. In 1776 Roy was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 53rd Foot, a new regiment formed in 1755. At the same time he was appointed as a practitioner-engineer, the lowest rank in the Board of Ordnance survey department, and ensign in the Corps of Engineers. Thereafter Roy was promoted steadily, and rapidly, in both structures, but his army rank was always greater than his board rank. For example, he was lieutenant-colonel in the army by 1762 and director and lieutenant-colonel of the Engineers in 1783. He is best known by his army rank of major-general, which he attained in 1781. From 1786 to his death in 1790, Roy held the position of Colonel of the 30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot. Active service On the termination of the Scottish survey Roy, now under the jurisdiction of two military bodies, was posted in 1756 to the South of England where he was engaged, together with Watson and Dundas, in inspecting the readiness of coastal military installations in preparation for an expected French invasion. This work involved Roy in the production of plans of fortifications and rough maps of stretches of the south coast: examples are a sketch of the country from Gloucester to Pembroke, with Milford Haven and a sketch of the country betwixt Guildford and Canterbury. These sketches are preserved in the British Library. By 1757 Roy was with his regiment in France for the Rochefort expedition and then in Germany for the Battle of Minden in 1759. His technical abilities and willingness to innovate brought him to the favourable attention of his commanders. Preparatory to the battle, the various military engineers made drawings of each step of the coming battle, with each step drawn on a different sheet of paper. The commander could then study the course of the battle before it occurred, going from one sheet to the next. Lieutenant Roy, however, made his drawings on a single sheet with coordinated and accurate overlays, so that the commander could more easily study the course of the battle by examining a single sheet of paper. The commander's comprehension was greatly facilitated, and Roy's methodology was soon adopted as an advancement in military science. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, proposed that Roy should lead the project. Roy accepted with enthusiasm for he saw that apart from the specific measurements proposed the survey could be the first step towards the national survey that he had advocated so often. The whole project is described by Roy in three major contributions to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1785, 1787 and 1790. There are shorter accounts of the project in the History of the Royal Engineers, the records of the Royal Society and in every history of the Ordnance Survey. After a preliminary survey by Roy and three other members of the Society on 16 April, they found a suitable location for the starting baseline on Hounslow Heath, between King's Arbour and Hampton Poor-house just over 5 miles to the south-east. A preliminary measurement of the line was carried out with a steel chain prepared by Jesse Ramsden. It was the intention to measure more accurately with a set of three deal rods about 20 ft. in length but their use had to be abandoned because of their susceptibility to lengthen and shorten in wet weather. The deal rods were replaced by one-inch-thick glass tubes of the same length. The final measurement gives the length of the base as 27404.7 ft. to an accuracy of about 3 inches in 5 miles (or about 1/100,000). The precision of this baseline measurement far exceeded any previous attempts, and in recognition Roy was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society in 1785. include Roy's work as the historical starting point for the modern profession. Perhaps his greatest legacy of all was the work of the Ordnance Survey which commenced in 1791, one year after his death, by extending the basic Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) to the rest of Great Britain over the following sixty years. ==Roy as antiquary==

, on the Antonine Wall, drawn by William Roy in 1755. During the Scottish Survey, Roy took careful note of the locations of ancient Roman remains, primarily military camps, wherever he encountered them and these were all marked precisely on the map sheets. This was the beginning of a lifelong interest in ancient Scottish history which he pursued whenever he was travelling the country in his capacity as Surveyor General. Roy's maps and his drawings of the relics of the Roman presence in Scotland were immediately seen as credible and valuable. For sites where the Roman remains were later destroyed by human development, his drawings are the only reliable record of their existence. Roy was the first to systematically map the Antonine Wall and provide accurate and detailed drawings of its remains, an effort undertaken in 1764. Roy's only historical work, Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain was published posthumously in 1793. This book has a mixed reputation. His drawings and maps are held in the highest regard as still-valuable research sources. However, his efforts in the scholarly discussion of history are widely held to be without value, largely through no fault of his own. This was due to his belief that the spurious text of Charles Bertram De Situ Britanniae was a genuine work, a view shared by virtually all of his contemporaries. Roy consequently adjusted his perspective to be consistent with the history as told in the fraud, causing his own conclusions to be without a valid foundation. Much of Roy's research was devoted to the attempt to follow fictitious journeys throughout Scotland that were described in De Situ Britanniae. That Roy's considerable talents were partially wasted is a tragedy. He was a Scot with a lifelong interest in ancient Scottish history, and his technical ability and scientific knowledge made him uniquely qualified to provide information in an area of history where knowledge and understanding are minimal. That loss for Scottish history has been bemoaned by Scottish historians. In his introduction to Celtic Scotland, Skene deprecates those historical works based on De Situ, including Roy's, but adds for him alone the comment that " ... perhaps more to be regretted, the valuable work of General Roy ..." ==Notes==

Roy's major scientific papers • • • • Roy's historical publication • Roy's maps and plans (partial list) The British Library holds a large collection of Roy's works (at Maps K.Top.48.25-1.a-f.); plans of Roman camps, plans of fortifications and maps of surveys conducted by himself are others. All of these works show Roy to have been an exceptionally neat and capable draughtsman. The principal items include • Military Survey of Scotland, 1747–1755, • ''The Duke of Cumberland's Map'' (1747), • A General Description of the South Part of Ireland, or Observations during a Short Tour in Ireland (1766), • Roman Post at Ardoch, Roman Camp, Dalginross, Genearn, Roman Temple at Netherby, Cumberland, Stratgeth Roman Post, near Innerpeffrey, Strathearn, • Culloden House, Esk River, Kent, New Romney to North Foreland, Louisbourg, Milford Haven, Coast of Sussex, Southeast part of England, Country between Guildford and Canterbury, Hindhead to Cocking, Lewes Road from Croydon to Chailey, Country from Dorchester to Salisbury, Country from Gloucester to Pembroke, Marden Castle, near Dorchester. Histories of the Ordnance Survey • • • • General references • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ==Further reading==