
Contents
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International collaboration International collaboration
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On Hounslow Heath: an exercise in experimental physics On Hounslow Heath: an exercise in experimental physics
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Fortifications, feuds and first steps in kent Fortifications, feuds and first steps in kent
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While waiting for Ramsden: a new family While waiting for Ramsden: a new family
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Linking Britain and France Linking Britain and France
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Last days, in Lisbon and London Last days, in Lisbon and London
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Notes Notes
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6 The Geodesist: Large Triangles and Minuscule Adjustments
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Published:August 2022
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Abstract
The appointment of the Duke of Richmond as Master General of the Ordnance in 1782 and the interest of both the Royal Society and the Académie Royale des Sciences in the shape of the Earth, provided favourable conditions for advances in geodesy. William had been trialling the instruments and procedures required for the measurement of baselines - crucial to accurate triangulation - for a new cartography of London, when Cassini de Thury proposed a project to determine the precise relative positions of the observatories in Greenwich and Paris. Joseph Banks, for the Royal Society, asked William to lead on this. A baseline was measured on Hounslow Heath in 1784, William taking extraordinary care to minimise errors. A massive new theodolite was ordered from Jesse Ramsden but, to William’s considerable irritation, it took three years to make. Meanwhile, some mapping began in Kent, and William designed a network of triangles to reach the Channel coast. With Ramsden’s theodolite at last delivered, fieldwork to the coast and across the Channel, went well, giving William the confidence to sketch an improved scheme for British national cartography. In 1790 he was finalising the results of the Greenwich-Paris project when he died in London.
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