William Roy

Major-General William Roy FRS (4 May 1726 – 1 July 1790) 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.

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.

Read more about William Roy:  Early Life and Family, Career and Later Life, Legacy, Partial Bibliography

Famous quotes containing the words william and/or roy:

    We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
    —J. William Fulbright (b. 1905)

    I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched seabeams glitter in the dark near the Tennhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.
    David Webb Peoples, U.S. screenwriter, and Ridley Scott. Roy Batty, Blade Runner, final words before dying—as an android he had a built-in life span that expired (1982)