William Roy


William Roy was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of Great Britain. His masterpiece is usually referred to as Roy's Map of Scotland.
It was Roy's advocacy and leadership that led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791, the year after his death. His technical work in the establishment of a surveying baseline won him the Copley Medal in 1785. His maps and drawings of Roman archaeological sites in Scotland were the first accurate and systematic study of the subject, and have not been improved upon even today. Roy was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Life and works

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 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, 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.

Monument

There is a monument to William Roy at the location of his birthplace on Milton Road near Carluke. It is signposted from the junction of Lanark Road and Cartland Avenue. The monument is in the form of a Hotine 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 Dictionary of National Biography.
  • 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

In 1747 Lieutenant-Colonel David Watson, Deputy Quartermaster-General, proposed the compilation of a map of the Scottish Highlands following the Jacobite rising of 1745.
In response, King George II 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 six soldiers who travelled with him: an NCO, two end markers, two chainmen and a batman.
From 1749 he was joined by another five junior surveyors for various periods of time: notable among these young assistants were Paul Sandby, later renowned for his watercolour landscapes, and a seventeen-year-old David Dundas, later Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
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 ... it would have been completed, and many of its imperfections no doubt remedied, but for the breaking out of war in 1755."
The eighty-four original field sheets and the thirty-eight divisions of the "fair-protraction"are held in the British Museum together with a small index map and a reduced map of the whole country in a single sheet published as "the King's map". It is now possible to view the map online.

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 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. Thereafter his promotion was rapid, and by the end of the war in 1763 Roy was a lieutenant colonel in the regiment and director of the engineers of the Board of Ordnance as well as being the deputy quartermaster general for Germany.

Surveyor-general

At the conclusion of the war in 1763 Roy returned to London, where he was based for the rest of his life. The threatened French invasion of the south coast had never materialised, but he felt strongly that the reconnaissances he had made with Watson at the outbreak of the war should be extended to a national survey, not just of the vulnerable south but the whole of the British Isles. He never ceased to champion this cause, but the expense of the Seven Years' War and then the American War of Independence excluded any expenditure on trigonometrical surveys for another twenty years.
In 1765 he was appointed surveyor-general under a royal warrant which directed him "to inspect, survey and make reports from time to time of the state of the coasts of this Kingdom and the islands thereunto belonging." This work, which took him to many parts of Britain and abroad, is recorded in the many plans and sketch maps of districts that are now lodged at the British Library.
Despite the travel Roy was able to enter fully into the intellectual life of London, and in 1767 he became a fellow of the Royal Society. The only paper he read before the society was in 1783 on Rules for measuring heights with a barometer. Roy was promoted to colonel in 1777, and to major-general in 1781. He was in charge of the departments of the Quartermaster-General and Chief Engineer in 1782, and in 1783 became the director of Royal Engineers.