Andrew Scott Waugh

Sir Andrew Scott Waugh ( born February 3, 1810 in India, † February 21, 1878 in London) was a British surveyor and officer who is now known primarily as the man who named the highest mountain in the world after Sir George Everest, his predecessor as Surveyor - General of India and the Head of the Great Trigonometric survey.

Life and work

Andrew Scott Waugh was born in 1810 as the eldest son of General Gilbert Waugh, who worked for the East India Company in Madras. After training at a school in Edinburgh and at the East India Company Military Seminary at Addiscombe, and at the British pioneer school, the Royal School of Military Engineering in Chatham (Kent), he was sent to India in 1829. He was seconded in 1832 to the Great Trigonometric Survey for service directly under the head of George Everest. Andrew Waugh was then in numerous campaigns for the Great Trigonometric Survey and conducted together with their Indian meridian arc measurement ( The Great Arc ) operates.

When Everest in 1843 retired to sleep, Andrew Waugh was simultaneously appointed as Surveyor General of India on Everest's proposal to succeed him as head of the Great Trigonometric Survey and. Andrew Waugh continued the work of the established Everest iron grid ( gridiron ) continued in the geodesic triangulations not everywhere, but have been carried out along the longitude and latitude and the gaps were filled by simple topographic survey of other departments of the Survey of India, that could be created in large part with the help of measuring stages.

The longest of the numerous, mostly executed in northeast India Triangulationsserien was from Dehradun to the east along the Himalayas to the region south of Darjeeling. Since the Nepalese government granted no access to their territory, the work 1845-1850 with great loss by the malaria-infested jungle and swamp areas had to be done at the foot of the Himalayas. In this Triangulationsserie ( 8,840 m) was measured over distances of up to 200 km of designated as Peak XV peak and its height to 29,002 feet calculated. After numerous checks this 1852 Andrew Waugh determined results published it in 1856 in a letter to the Royal Geographical Society, in which he named the Peak XV absence of reliable knowledge of a local name in honor of his predecessor as Mount Everest. This letter was taken in the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 11 May 1857 in the presence of George Everest approval.

After carrying out further, nor planned by George Everest series in northeast India in 1856 he turned to the West, where under his leadership the area between Karachi and the Himalayas was also measured by the grid method. These series were - after an interruption by the revolt of 1857 - completed in 1860.

He took his leave on March 12, 1861 and moved to London, where he took part in the public life of the City of London and was active in the Royal Geographical Society, the Vice - President, he was from 1867 to 1870.

Honors

Andrew Scott Waugh was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, following the meeting on Mount Everest, the following year he was also elected to its member ( Fellow ). In 1861 he was promoted to Major honorary general ( Major General ) and raised to the peerage. He was also a member of the Athenaeum Club.