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Rachel Hewitt

Map Of A Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey Paperback – July 7, 2011

by Rachel Hewitt (Author)

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Map of a Nation tells the story of the creation of the Ordnance Survey map - the first complete, accurate, affordable map of the British Isles. The Ordnance Survey is a much beloved British institution, and Map of a Nation is, amazingly, the first popular history to tell the story of the map and the men who dreamt and delivered it. The Ordnance Survey's history is one of political revolutions, rebellions and regional unions that altered the shape and identity of the United Kingdom over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It's also a deliciously readable account of one of the great untold British adventure stories, featuring intrepid individuals lugging brass theodolites up mountains to make the country visible to itself for the first time.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Granta Books
Publication date

July 7, 2011
Dimensions

5 x 1.22 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

1847082548
ISBN-13

978-1847082541
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Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a brilliant book, and it's astonishing that no one has thought of writing it before ... History at its best - A N Wilson, Reader's Digest Gripping [story] about the remarkable personalities who initiated the scientific mapping of Britain and their extraordinary feats of skill and endurance ... this is the first book of a young historian of whom more will be heard - Max Hastings, Sunday Times Hewitt tackles the subject exuberantly ... the book won me over. The sweep of its history has true grandeur, and the incidentals of the tale are like desirables found in a cluttered antique shop - Jan Morris, The Times In this endlessly absorbing history, Rachel Hewitt narrates the history of our printed maps from King George II's "Scotophobic" cartographies to the three-dimensional computerised elevations of today ... In her lively and informative narrative, Hewitt highlights the Ordnance project's legion of draughtsmen, surveyors, dreamers and eccentrics - Ian Thomson, Observer An extremely handsome and scholarly account of the genesis of the OS map ... The next time I am in the Public House (wherever it is) I shall raise a pint to Rachel Hewitt and her band of map-makers - Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph This is a solid account of how Britain's national mapping agency came into being ... she is good on the military, scientific and ideological impulses behind the OS and on its enormous appeal to the general public - Sunday Times A diligent and very detailed book ... she has done justice to a neglected subject and to neglected but worthy men - Peter Lewis, Daily Mail The enthralling story of the creation of the Ordnance Survey map ... with wonderful tales of the intrepid individuals who lugged brass theodolites over hill and dale in order to make the country visible for the first time - Caroline Sanderson, Bookseller An exhaustively detailed study of the life and times of Ordnance Survey maps ... there are frequent nuggets of enjoyably recondite information - Gillian Tindall, Literary Review Tells the intriguing story of how the early productions of the theodolite-lugging surveyors who began the project in the 1790s developed into the digitalised OS of our own times - Giles Foden, Conde Nast Traveller A remarkable story of human endeavour in the name of Enlightenment values - Claire Allfree, Metro A fascinating account of British cartography ... In a compelling overview, Hewitt discusses how developments in scientific thinking, technological advances and an important dose of Anglo-French collaboration eventually led, in 1870, to the creation of the Ordnance Survey's First Series, a landmark as significant as The Oxford English Dictionary in shaping how the country thought about itself and its 'physical and intellectual' landscapes - Lady An erudite, meticulously researched and fascinating history - Waterstone's Books Quarterly A fascinating narrative... illuminates the process by which our nation redrew itself over a century - Celia Brayfield, The Times Hewitt's tale of cartography is pacy and - like the best historical writing - focused on human endeavour rather than dry facts - Sarah Warwick, Liverpool Daily Post, the Yorkshire Evening Post, East Anglian Daily Times, Eastern Daily Press, Newsletter More hugely impressive historical studies from 2010 which celebrate peaceful pursuits rather than blood and bigotry include Rachel Hewitt's great study of the British Ordnance Survey, Map of a Nation - Stephen Howe, Independent A lively, well-written and carefully researched evocation of how the landscapes of Britain (and Ireland) came to be revealed with such dramatic precision - William J Smyth, Irish Times In this lively overview, Hewitt explains how over the course of a century developments in scientific thinking, technological advances and a critical dose of Anglo-French collaboration eventually led to the creation of the OS's First Series in 1870 - Emma Hagestadt, Independent A scholarly account of the genesis of the OS map, and a route into the national psyche - Daily Telegraph Hewitt tells a gripping story about the personalities who initiated the mapping of Britain and their extraordinary skill and endurance - Max Hastings, Sunday Times this description of the origins of mapping in the UK covers lots of ground ... anyone who has used a map and a compass to puzzle their way out after getting lost on Britain's foggy moorland has cause to thank the painstaking work of the original pioneers - Maggie Hartford, Oxford Times Within the first few paragraphs the open and engaging nature of Rachel Hewitt's writing had me captured ... How the men of those early years observed that first triangulation and achieved such accurate results will never cease to amaze and this beautifully crafted book is a fitting tribute and long overdue recognition of their achievements ... Such authoritative books are rare things and I would recommend to all who have feelings for maps and our UK landscape to take time to read Map of a Nation - John Levell, Caught by the River Anyone whose world has been shaped by the familiar OS maps seriously needs to read this book - Margaret Elphinstone, Sunday Herald Erudite and compelling ... One of Map of a Nation's many accomplishments is to show how adventurous and imaginative engineering and mapmaking could - and still can - be. It is readable, informative and its content often unexpected - History Today"

About the Author

RACHEL HEWITT completed her doctoral thesis on the subject of the early Ordnance Survey at the University of London in 2007, and is currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. She won the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction for this project. She lives in Cambridge.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Granta Books; paperback / softback edition (July 7, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1847082548
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1847082541
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1.22 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #997,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #139 in Cartography
- #1,385 in Geography (Books)
- #2,366 in England History

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Karl JanssenTop Contributor: Fantasy Books

A thorough institutional history of Britain’s cartographic bureau

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 9, 2022

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Being an American, I’m not familiar with the British Ordnance Survey maps, but I am interested in the history of geography and how maps were made in the olden days before electronic devices. In her 2010 book Map of a Nation, author Rachel Hewitt provides an in-depth history of the Ordnance Survey, a department of the British military responsible for mapping the British Isles and colonies of the British Empire. In particular, Hewitt focuses on the creation of the First Series of Ordnance maps, which was the first time an accurate scale map of England and Wales had ever been professionally compiled, printed, and released to the general public. The scope of Hewitt’s account ranges from about 1745 to 1870.

The most fascinating portions of the book are those that detail the exploits of the Ordnance surveyors as they are out in the field making maps. Hewitt clearly explains the science behind the instruments used and how they were employed on site. It is very interesting to learn how the surveyors achieved maximum accuracy by calculating and compensating for the effects of temperature change on their instruments or the gravitational pull of land masses. In their rambling journeys over the countryside, the intrepid mapmakers not only faced hardships from the elements but also hostility from landowners who suspected the surveyors to be spies or taxmen. The Ordnance Survey’s mapping projects took far longer than expected, and considering the difficulties they faced, as Hewitt describes them, it is a wonder the maps were ever completed at all.

The history of the Ordnance Survey is not all about rambling over hill and heath, however. It also involves a great deal of politics and military bureaucracy. Before the Ordnance Survey even appears in the book, Hewitt gives a long summary of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, in which the Scots rebelled against the English. Hewitt uses this to establish the context for the birth of the Ordnance Survey, but it makes for an awfully lengthy set-up. Over the course of the Ordnance Survey’s history, Hewitt sketches the biography of each new officer who takes up a managerial position in the department. These biographies often digress into tangled webs of genealogy, peerage titles, descriptions of estates, and tangential relationships to the royal family. Hewitt broadens the scope of her study even further by delving into the role that maps played in popular culture, which involves her quoting just about every contemporary English play or poem in which the word “map” is uttered. Such deviations often feel like a stretch from the topic at hand. As often as not, however, Hewitt’s digressions lead to the discovery of surprising facts and curious trivia.

The thoroughness of Hewitt’s research is impressive, but for many general readers it may just be too thorough. At times this narrative of the Ordnance Survey feels just as arduous and protracted as that institution’s lengthy mapping projects. If you are approaching this book from an interest in cartography, be advised that cartography is only part of the story here. This is, after all, an institutional history, and as such it is bound to contain its fair share of mundane details and figures. That said, as far as government departments go, the Ordnance Survey is more interesting than most, and readers who enjoy exploring maps will certainly learn much about the complex processes behind the making of maps. You will come away from this book with a greater appreciation for the cartographic pioneers who devoted their lives to the science and art of mapping our world.

Helpful

Jonathan D. Beard

A nice book that goes part of the way

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2013

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Rachel Hewitt's history of the UK equivalent to the USGS Topo maps is a good read as far as it goes. She does an excellent job with the people and circumstances that caused Britain to decide to map its land, and introduces such characters as poet William Wordsworth into the story. But it was very disappointing to find that she ends the story before the 20th century begins. The OS maps really came into popular life when affordable editions were printed, and hikers all over the UK were able to make use of them to explore the landscape. There should be a Volume 2 for this work.

2 people found this helpful

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Tony Burson

More information that you wanted to know.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2014

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OS maps, if you live in the UK or have hiked there, are marvels. The amount of detail that one sheet map of any part of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales is amazing and can for some, myself included, be a source of great pleasure.
There are facts in this book which I never knew relating to the art of cartography all laid out in a easy to read narrative. Bottom line, if you enjoy maps and especially OS Maps, you will add a lot to your trove of knowledge by reading this book.

One person found this helpful

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KJ. Longbrake

Not what I expected

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 6, 2014

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We are going to the UK this summer and I like maps and background info. This however is not what I wanted. I like a bit more modern information. I didn't realize it was how the earth was formed kind of book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book has a lot of information that has not been readily available else where.
I deem it a very important addition to any OS collectors library.
Highly recommended.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 30, 2014

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My wife is always building up her research library. The deeper into family history the more references make it come alive.

Helpful

An epic book that covers the surveying of Great Britain inch by inch

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 1, 2016

Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey is the history and circumstances of how Great Britain was mapped, inch by inch. Hewitt begins in the Scottish Highlands with David Watson in 1746. It covers the period 1747-1870 with ‘digressions and distractions’ and conflicts about place names, such that the first ordnance of the entire land, with stops and starts, took 79 years to complete.

Hewitt writes of the scientists, mathematicians, toolmakers, leaders, soldiers, walkers, and artists – and of the hostilities and friendships along the way, not just between the surveyors, but also between England and France. The French were ahead of the British in terms of surveying, and in 1783 a team of French astronomers approached the Royal Society of Britain to instigate a measurement between the observatories in Paris and Greenwich, hence the book looks inward to the whole of Britain, and outward across the channel.

In 1747 William Roy began mapping the Scottish Highlands under Watson’s management – living in a tent on a mountain – and finished in 1752. Then the team surveyed the Scottish Lowlands. By 1800 two Acts of Union joined Ireland to Wales and England into the United Kingdom, and therefore Ireland was also surveyed, commencing in 1824 and taking almost 20 years. And England and Wales.

The book also covers the history of the instruments used in surveying: from the use of beacons, lamps, limelight, and fires, to the plane table and an alidade, to a surveyor’s wheel, to a chain and circumferentor, theodolite, heliotrope, and barometers. There are also discussions on contouring and toponymic innovations, as well as the lunar-distance chronometer method of overcoming the longitude problem, and the introduction of the ‘one inch to a mile’ scale.

It’s an epic book, commencing with a back-and-forth timeline before eventually becoming more linear. With anecdotes and amusing insights into the lives of surveyors, it is not a dry tedious account, but rather, it is quite a pleasure to read.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Sanda

Couldn't get into this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 20, 2020

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I like history and I like biographies and I like maps, so this should have been interesting. But there is too much; it seems like a PhD thesis that's turned into a book. Thousands of facts and hundreds of biographies, all joined together with a half-inch thick bibliography at the end. On the plus side it's well-written and doesn't seem to carry any bias that books at this level can be tainted with. I can't fault any of the content but it's hard work to read.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

The history started in Scotland as the English military found they needed better maps, indeed any map

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 3, 2016

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‘Map of A Nation’ by Rachel Hewitt uncovers the history of the Ordnance Survey as the landscape of the United Kingdom and Ireland was first drawn up in detail. The history started in Scotland as the English military found they needed better maps, indeed any map, so that they could track down and track down Jacobite rebels in the mid-1700s. The Ordnance Survey was fortunate to have several extremely determined and driven men who braved the elements, who developed better mapping techniques and fought for funding. However, they didn’t follow a straight path! It took at least 70 years to finish the first series of maps of England and Wales on a scale of 1 inch to a mile. Along the way there were diversions, including mapping Ireland to ensure that taxes were paid, measurements of the Earth’s shape, mapping Jerusalem for sanitation purposes and ventures into geology, place names and much more besides. As so much happened during the Industrial Revolution many of the maps failed to include railways or reflect the huge growth in the size of towns. Nevertheless, an institution was born as well as Britain’s obsession with mapping every tiny detail. Today things have moved on and we have satnav and GPS but there’s still many a rambler who likes to go walking with an OS map and a compass and to test their navigational skills.

9 people found this helpful

mercian

Map of a Nation - Hewitt

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 25, 2011

Verified Purchase

Fascinating, comprehenive, well researched. Clear analysis of some complex matters, which are always readable with pleasure. But it's more social history than scientific analysis, which might disappoint readers interested in early surveying techniques. There could have been more on the trigonometry of triangulation, the base for the mapping, which was key to the accuracy and uniqueness of the maps. There could have been more on how surveying on the ground linked to the primary triangulation - a sight of some field books would have been helpful. It would also have been helpful to learn how mapping conventions and font styles evolved - many of which still inspire current formats.

She is also light on how measurement of height evolved and checking it back to mean sea level. She does not mention the effect of the earth's curvature on base lines and the maps themselves: the surveyors would have adjusted mapping to lessen the distortion which would have beeen noticeable over large distances.

She takes the history up to publication of the first edition 1" mapping, which is a pity, since the bulk of current mapping owes much to modern surveying techniques and map reproduction. Obviously the current book is the right length, so she had to stop where she did, but, I feel that many of the literary references could have been omitted without spoiling the narrative.

The cheap paper back edition was false economy: the print is too small, the font awkward, the paper quality indifferent and most of the illustrations unreadable. Probably the hard back version is better.

However for all this, necessary reading for all who use Ordnance maps and have a sense of history

5 people found this helpful

Martin H.

An incredibly detailed historical account

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

Amazing the amount of historical information that has been gathered in this book, the research must have been colossal to bring all this together. I do a lot of walking and so using the ordnance survey map and have always been amazed at the detail and accuracy, I always know that if ever I find myself in a bit of a muddle, I know for sure it’s never the map that’s got it wrong, it’s just me, so reading all this history has been wonderful thanks

One person found this helpful

Alan Machin

A well-mapped biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 7, 2012

Verified Purchase

After the first chapter, which seemed unnecessary, I got into the book and found it delightful and informative. Some of the negative comments here read like sour grapes, or people thinking an academic, technical and comprehensive work is the only one that should be written. This is an excellent, readable account of the OS in its historical context. It relates very well to its audience, who will not all be techno-geeks. I read this alongside the more technical histories and still understood by doing so far more of how the OS came about and was shaped by personalities and politics. It would have been good to see the story brought up to date, and it might have been good to have more comparisons with, for example, the French and American surveys. But Rachel Hewitt's chosen remit was perfectly valid. Like the Ordnance Survey in its early days, she mapped out her work according to chosen priorities and delivered a very worthwhile result.

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