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Summary
Author: James, Sir Henry
Title: Lecture on the Ordnance Survey at the United Service Institution 3 o’clock 4 Febry 1859 (manuscript title in ink).
Publication: 1859.
Price: £240
Reference: 09800
Full Description
Folio. Manuscript in ink. comprising a title leaf and 10 numbered leaves, with text on their versos only. Tied with pink ribbon at top left hand corner. Attached at the back is an engraved diagram, “Geometrical Projection of Two Thirds of the Sphere”, with an accompanying printed sheet of text. The manuscript is accompanied by an offprint of the lecture in its printed form, 11 + (1)pp text, with 3 engraved plates. It is also accompanied by Sir Henry James’s ink notes for another lecture on the Ordnance Survey, to be delivered at a Congress (not otherwise unidentified) at some date after 31 December 1859, comprising 8 folio leaves, again with text on versos only.
The manuscript text of a lecture by Sir Henry James (1803-1877), a Colonel in the Royal Engineers who headed the Ordnance Survey between 1854 and 1875, and improved its procedures and administration at a critical period in the Ordnance Survey’s history. The lecture reviews the Ordnance Survey’s history and describes its current tasks and organizational structure. A comparison of James’s manuscript with his printed text, also present here in offprint form, suggests that the text of the lecture as delivered differed significantly from the version that appeared in print. We also offer with these items James’s notes for a subsequent lecture on the history and progress of the Ordnance Survey, to be delivered at a Congress, not otherwise unidentified, in the early 1860s.