George Augustus Bennett
Captain George Augustus Bennett was an English military engineer of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Board of Ordnance. He served in Corfu, on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, as Commanding Royal Engineer in New Zealand and first president of the Auckland Mechanics' Institute. Whilst serving in Ireland he devised and implemented the system of contours for Ordnance Survey maps. In the Colony of New Zealand he designed the flagstaff blockhouse central to the Battle of Kororāreka and other military works.
Early life
Bennett, born 6 January 1807, was the second of three sons of William Bennett of Portsea, Hampshire, a major in the Corps of Royal Engineers, and Mary Early. William served at Fort Cumberland, Hampshire, and overseas at Nova Scotia commanding the 12th Company, Royal Sappers and Miners, Sicily in 1810 and 1812–1815, and Ireland, but died of consumption at Gosport, Hampshire, on or about 18 June 1821, aged 37 years. Mary married Major Thomas Alston Brandreth, RA, some years later, in 1826.Paternal grandfather, George Augustus Bennett, had served as an officer of the Royal Marine Force; great-grandfather, William Bennett, attained the rank of rear admiral in the Royal Navy. Maternal grandfather, James Early, was an officer of the 1st Royal Garrison Battalion; great-grandfather, Early, a farmer at Datchet, near Windsor, had been, by family legend, greatly in favour with George III on farming matters.
Bennett was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland, for some of his early years. His brother, Frederick, was born in Ireland in or about 1816. Carrying on a family line of military service and profession of military engineer, he trained at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from 1823 to 11 July 1827.
Breaking from family traditions, his brothers' callings were to the clergy, both taking their degrees at Christ Church, Oxford. William James Early Bennett, went on to make a remarkable contribution to the Oxford Movement.
Career
Gentleman Cadet Bennett was commissioned as no. 611, 2nd lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers, Board of Ordnance, at Woolwich, on 13 July 1827. He remained there for six months and, after a short leave, was posted to the Mediterranean.Corfu
In 1828, he was stationed at Corfu, Ionian Islands, where fortifications were being repaired and constructed by a company of Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. As the works at Corfu were too extensive for the garrison there, a smaller fort to command the anchorage had been devised for the island of Vido, which, constructed from 1825, would be finished by 1831–32.Ireland
Ordnance Survey
In 1832 Bennett was assigned to the Ordnance survey of Ireland under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Frederick Colby, RE, and Lieutenant Thomas Aiskew Larcom, RE, and advanced to rank of lieutenant on 10 December. By the end of 1834 he'd worked through producing survey memoirs for many county Antrim, Down and Armagh parishes—Glenavy, Aghaderg, Annaclone, Clonallan, Donacloney, Donaghmore, Dromara, Dromore, Drumballyroney, Drumgath, Garvaghy, Magherally, Magheralin, Newry, Seapatrick, Shankill, Tullylish, Warrenpoint, Ballymore, Drumcree, Kilmore, Montiaghs, Seagoe— and with Lieutenant Henry Tucker, RE, took charge of the operations in County Louth from about 1834. Then, as Captain Robert Kearsley Dawson, RE, moved on to England in connection with the Reform Commission in 1835, Bennett took over his hill drawing role, superintending the hill-sketchers.Contours
On Sunday, 1 April 1838, Bennett gave 4th Division over to Lieutenant St George Lyster, RE, and took charge of the Hill-Drawing Department, Statistics and Antiquities; a change of scene that he hoped would restore his health after the pressures of divisional work. Colby and Larcom briefed him at Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1–2 April. Larcom was keen to introduce light and shade into drawing hills and was attempting it on the rail road map. Colby revealed his scheme for heights of hills or elevation by a series of contours at 50 ft each having a darker shade near the hilltop, which Larcom thought noble but impractical. A French engraver's example with houses, woods and other features worked into the shade with good effect was also shown, but trees were not distinct and Bennett disliked it.Hill sketching work was expensive and after years of experiments Colby had not then seen any mode of drawing hills on maps that was perfectly satisfactory. Colby reported to the Inspector General of Fortifications, 6 May 1840:
In the Cadastral Map of Ireland the altitudes marked are extremely numerous, and afford great assistance to the sketchers; still this information alone does not enable them to perfect sketches for definite use. Captain Larcom suggested running contour lines instrumentally at certain distances, as affording accurate data to regulate the detorication of hills.
In pursuit of the definite and useful map, Larcom instigated contouring in 1838, with Bennett specifically tasked with perfecting and implementing the new system. In mid-April, Bennett set the department's senior civil assistant, Charles Whybrow Ligar, to making a scale model from card in 50 ft contour heights which, quickly done, worked well. Having taken an office-residence at Armagh in April 1838, and inspected the civilian sketchers' work from Dungannon to Coleraine and the Giant's Causeway, he resolved that for efficacy and economy, the Royal Sappers and Miners must do the contour work. Settling in Armagh in early May he noted: "got all right and comfortable—shall now set to work—head aches as bad nearly as ever with eternal flushings well it will end one way or another—" The headaches and sore eyes continued, nevertheless, he worked through the method of instrumental contours and by the end of May had made a scale skeleton model of "Bendradagh" in 50 ft contour heights, and soon after cast a plaster model of it. He wrote on 29 May:
I question whether if the contours are taken every 25 ft. above the sea by the instrument, there be anything left for the sketcher to do—It seems to me that these 25 ft contours put to the 1 inch scale will fill the sheet—If so, it becomes a matter of calculation, whether an active Sapper cannot contour with an instrument a square mile a day the present rate of sketching only—One most valuable desideratum for the improvement of the country & easily comprehended by all classes (the other only understood by initiated and useless "to the general"—These contours I think can also systematically be united with light and shade, a union of art and mechanism which would perfect & render simple what has hitherto been a system of hyeroglyphics.
The model proved useful to the sappers and by 13 June Bennett noted that they seemed to be getting on well, that: "the contour system works excellently and I have no doubt of its ultimate success—we shall contour soon a square mile a day instrumentally. How immeasurably superior to the sketching". Colby clarified the development of instrumental contouring in 1840:
The use of contour lines had often been proposed by the Continental writers, on military plans for fortifications, &c., but the extensive use of contours obtained by the aid of levelling instruments had never been tried, from an apprehension of the difficulty and expense of the operation. Lieutenant Bennett has tried them over a small part of the north of Ireland with great apparent success; the time and cost has been small compared with the result.
Similarly, Larcom reported to the Commissioners enquiring into the Ordnance Memoir of Ireland in July 1843, that: "contouring was introduced under the direction of Lieutenant Bennett with such energy and ability that the average cost of contouring different parts of Donegal and Louth amounted only to about 10s. a square mile, or a farthing per acre, which was an addition so small as to be quite justifiable."
Bennett's contour map work, 1838–1840, including Inishowen, County Donegal, were successful and well received. Specimens and models of the Donegal work were sent to Chatham to be used in the Royal Engineers training course. Colby moved to contour County Louth before Donegal was complete, but Bennett was moving on and the work passed to his successor, who then turned all hill department draftsmen into contourers.
England
Royal Engineers, under command of Captain George Barney, RE, had been stationed in New South Wales, Australia, since 1835. From there, Lieutenant Henry Williamson Lugard, RE, and Clerk of Works George Graham had been assigned to New Zealand following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Whilst Bennett was at Woolwich, England, in early 1841, the Master General of the Ordnance appointed him to assume command of the engineer department in New Zealand. He and his dog embarked at Plymouth on the Lady Clarke for passage to New Zealand on 4 September 1841.New Zealand
Stopovers
The Lady Clarke arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, on 26 December 1841. After sightseeing trips to Newcastle and the river to Maitland, to Sydney, Parramatta, Windsor and a brief stay with Sir George and Lady Gipps, then to Wollongong where the hills, forest and rivers to Campbelltown caught his eye for picturesque landscape, Bennett continued on to New Zealand by the brig Bristolian on 28 January 1842. He was joined by several passengers he'd met on the voyage out, a coach-maker and wife, James and Elizabeth Soall.The Bristolian arrived at Kororāreka, Bay of Islands, on 15 February. With a little effort he located the non-existent towns of Victoria, and Russell, inspected Lugard's military works, then moved on to Auckland.