17.
fence of Heathrow Airport. This line was
the base for a remarkably accurate triangu-
lation in 1787, connected cross-Channel by
night observations employing specially
devised brilliant lights, to link up with
triangles plotted by the French Academy of
Science in Paris.
In his triangulation of Kent, Roy might
well have used one or two sighting points in
South Essex. Before his death in July 1790
he had laid the foundation of what, a year
later (10th July 1791) was officially inau-
gurated as the Survey of the Board of
Ordnance. Lacking the drive and devotion
Roy had provided for over 40 years, the
scheme had at once begun to drift, especially
as the new man in command was something of a
cipher. But his deputy in the field was a
young man of whom Roy would have fully
approved.
WILLIAM MUDGE came of an accomplished
Plymouth family. His father, Dr John Mudge
F.R.S., in London, was on close terms with
Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr Samuel Johnson.
When the 15 year old boy was at the Royal
Military College, Woolwich, Johnson, as his
godfather, visited him and gave him a book
and a guinea. After 12 years of commissioned
soldiering, he was recommended in 1791 to the
Survey (the year in which he also was elected
F.R.S.), and in practical terms ran the field
work from then on. He was appointed in
charge from 1798 when he was additionally
appointed Governor of the Royal Military
College. He built the latter up again from
a ruinous state of indiscipline. To these
two arduous commands a third was added when
the East India Co. asked him to superintend
their own new military college at Addiscombe.