War Office/Ministry of Defence Trigonometrical/Geodetic Library Material

Survey materials and their derivatives used in the compilation and revision of maps to support the geographical requirements of the United Kingdom government and armed forces. The library primarily comprises survey control items including surveyors' field observations, computations, grid and graticule information, maps and associated reports, with a large proportion of the material used in the delineation of international boundaries. Most items are manuscript, with a sizeable number in typescript. Geographical coverage is largely of southern and eastern Africa and the Middle East. The following original indexes exist within the library:. Anglo-Belgian (Northern Rhodesia-Belgian Congo) Boundary Commission 1927-33. A partially complete 'Index of Observation Books Showing Contents' is filed at TRIG/12. These Observation Books (often annotated as 'field' copies) contained the original survey data and were completed in the field. To protect against loss, it was common practice for surveyors to copy these observations into a duplicate Observation Book (often annotated as 'office' copies) at the end of each day. Both field and office copies are held in this collection; Palestine Survey Records. A listing of these records is filed at TRIG/49, although not everything on the list was transferred to the British Library; Categories of material include:. · Nyasa-Tanganyika Boundary 1898. · Anglo-Portuguese Boundary Commission North and South of the Zambezi 1904-05. · Barotseland Boundaries 1907. · Mweru-Tanganyika Boundary Commission 1911-13. · Anglo-Belgian Boundary Commission 1911-14. · War Office geodetic computations and traverse 1912-14. · Rhodesia-Angola Boundary Commission 1913-14. · RE Field Survey companies, Syria & Palestine 1917-37. · Levant/Syria 1918-63. · Turkey, Greece and the Balkans 1919-67. · Anglo-Belgian Boundary Commission 1922-24. · Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait 1923-39. · Northern Rhodesia documents 1924. · Survey of Palestine 1924-46 [? or under the British Mandate 1918-48]. · Anglo-Belgian (Northern Rhodesia-Belgian Congo) Boundary Commission 1927-33. · Northern Rhodesia-Belgian Congo Boundary 1937. · Iceland 1940-43. · Italy 1940-46. · Middle East: miscellaneous survey records 1940-55. · Palestine-Transjordan triangulation chain 1941-46. · Northern Rhodesia Survey Section astronomical observations 1941. · Israel 1948-. · Director of Colonial Surveys air survey points 1951. · Geographical Mission of Mozambique 1953. · Northern Rhodesia-Southern Rhodesia boundary 1964 (booklet). · Northern Rhodesia-Angola Boundary Commission 1964. · Transjordan Original Surveys. · Gazetteers. · Zambia boundaries, general. · Books.

The library was transferred in approximately 80 boxes. Items within each box bore a Trig/Geodetic Library class mark, although the boxes themselves lacked formal numbering. Now re-boxed and renumbered sequentially, the content of each box where possible remains the same, with the Trig/Geodetic Library class mark retained on individual items. Boxes 1 to 48 (catalogued as TRIG/1 to TRIG/48) have undergone sorting at the British Library and the contents re-arranged such that whole surveys now appear in consecutive boxes. Boxes 49 (TRIG/49) onwards have not required such sorting.

• War Office
• Ministry of Defence

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