State Imperatives: Military Mapping in Scotland, 1689–1770

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, military engineers and surveyors played a major role in representing and in constructing military landscapes. They designed and built fortifications, roads and bridges; depicted towns and countryside as militarised spaces; artistically recorded battles; and surveyed for military purposes. This paper looks at aspects of these activities in Scotland. Visual representations of mapped military activities, specifically those produced by the engineers of the Board of Ordnance, are examined not as objective ‘mirrors of the world’, but as expressions and symbols of political power. With reference to two distinct genres of military mapping – fortification plans and route surveys – this paper emphasises the purpose of the maps, not just their content, as key to their understanding.

Key Words:

• Scotland
• military engineers
• landscapes
• ideology
• cartography

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Charles Withers and Christopher Fleet for comments on earlier drafts and the four referees for their critical guidance. The author is also grateful to the National Library of Scotland and the AHRC for supporting her research project, to the British Library Map Library for the endowment of a Helen Wallis Fellowship, and to the Trustees of the Brian Harley Fellowship for support in her research at The National Archives.

Notes

¹TNA WO 30/55, William Roy, 1765, f. 2.

²The extant map archive comprises about 900 maps and plans divided among four principal repositories: the National Library of Scotland (NLS) (c.400 items), the British Library (BL) (c.300), The National Archives (TNA) at Kew (c.170), and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (40 items). The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) and the Admiralty Library hold a few pertinent maps, and The National Archives (Kew) has a substantial number of textual records relating to the Board of Ordnance.

³TNA WO 30/54, William Roy, 1785, pp. 85–87.

⁴The Viscount of Santarém, in 1839, coined the term ‘cartography’ for the study of early maps; thereafter appropriated for all aspects of map making.

⁵BL Add. MS King's 70, pp. 1–78.

⁶Ibid, pp. 52–55.

⁷Beckman was appointed Engineer to the Ordnance in 1670, becoming Chief Engineer from 1677, under Bernard de Gomme, whom he succeeded in 1685. In April 1685 he was sent to Scotland to direct work on the defences of Stirling in anticipation of an uprising.

⁸TNA WO 44/100, p. 19, quoted in Barker, 1985, p. 106.

⁹Ibid.

¹⁰Fortification Scales: 1st A scale of 1600 Feet to an Inch for the General Map of a Coast or small Island, etc. 2nd A Scale of 800 Feet to an Inch for the Plan of a Town and parts adjacent. 3rd A Scale of 400 Feet to an Inch for a particular Plan of a Town or Settlement. 4th A Scale of 200 Feet to an Inch to survey the same by. 5th A Scale of 100 Feet to an Inch for a particular Plan of a Fort Battery or the like. 6th A Scale of 10 Feet to an Inch for a Magazine or particular Building, Sections, or Profils of the same. 7th A Scale of 5 Feet to an Inch for a Draw-Bridge, Gun Carriage, or any other Carpenter's Work.

¹¹NLS MS 1646 Z.02/24b–c.

¹²NLS MS 1646 Z.02/24b.

¹³TNA WO 55/344, pp. 292–293.

¹⁴TNA WO 30/115, David Watson [n.d.], p. 202.

¹⁵TNA WO 55/319, p. 131.

¹⁶NLS MS 1649 Z.03/58a.

¹⁷NLS MS 1649 Z.03/58b. Menno van Coehoorn (1641–1704), a Dutch engineer, was a leading exponent (along with Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707), the chief military engineer of Louis XIV) of the art of fortification on the continent.

¹⁸TNA WO 55/319, p. 127.

¹⁹TNA WO 47/30, 1717, p. 235.

²⁰Ibid, p. 229; TNA WO 55/346, pp. 361–362.

²¹Parliamentary History, 11 (1739–41), quoted in Douet, 1998, p. 41.

²²Parliamentary History, 32 (1795–7), p. 1, 442, quoted in ibid, p. 42.

²³BL Add. MS King's 103, 1727, f. 18.

²⁴Ibid, ff. 19–20.

²⁵BL Add. MS King's 100, 1724, f. 14.

²⁶TNA T 1/374/28, 1757, p. 10.

²⁷TNA SP 54/19/41, 28 August 1728, ff. 141–142.

²⁸NLS Acc.10497 Wade.58b.

²⁹NLS MS.1648 Z.03/21

³⁰NLS Acc.10497 Wade.58c

³¹Ibid.

³²TNA SP 54/29/27, 1746, ff. 219–220.

³³NAS RH1/2/511, f. 10.

³⁴BL Maps K.Top.48.17–21; TNA MPF 1/247.

³⁵TNA MPF 1/247.

³⁶See note 33.

³⁷BL Maps C.9.b., formerly Maps K.Top.48.25.1a–f; NLS. Available at http://www.nls.uk/maps/roy/index.html

³⁸TNA CO 325/1, 1776, f. 199 verso.

³⁹BL Add. MS 17499.

⁴⁰Ibid, f. 13.

⁴¹TNA WO 47/34, 1749, f. 59.

⁴²Ibid, f. 9.

⁴³TNA WO 47/76, 1770 July–Dec, p. 72.

⁴⁴TNA WO 26/21, 1749, pp. 359–360.

⁴⁵ An account of the measurement of a base on Hounslow-Heath. By Major-General William Roy, … Read at the Royal Society, from April 21 to June 16, 1785. London, 1785, p. 3.