Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem

rdf:langString Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem

rdf:langString Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem

rdf:langString Front page of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, illustrated with the Chain Gate fountain. See full pdf of the Ordnance Survey here

rdf:langString The Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem of 1864–65 was the first scientific mapping of Jerusalem, and the first Ordnance Survey to take place outside the United Kingdom. It was undertaken by Charles William Wilson, a 28-year-old officer in the Royal Engineers corps of the British Army, under the authority of Sir Henry James, as Superintendent of the Ordnance Survey, and with the sanction of George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon as Secretary of State for War. The team of six Royal Engineers began their work on 3 October 1864. The work was completed on 16 June 1865, and the report was published on 29 March 1866. During the resulting search, he produced "the first perfectly accurate map [of Jerusalem], even in the eyes of modern cartography", and identified the eponymous Wilson's Arch but was unable to find a new source of water. Over a century after the survey, Dan Bahat described it as "a watershed in the exploration of Jerusalem and its past", and The Jerusalem Post commented that Wilson's efforts "served as the basis for all future Jerusalem research". The survey provided the foundation and impetus for the creation of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The first meeting of the Fund took place on 22 June 1865, less than a week after the completion of the Ordnance Survey, and Charles Wilson was appointed by the Fund as the Chief Director of their proposed exploration of the rest of Palestine. In July 1866 Dean Stanley described the Ordnance Survey as a "sort of pre-historic stage of our Palestine Exploration Fund". It was the most influential and reliable map of Jerusalem until the British Mandate's Survey of Palestine, which published a 1:2,500 map of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1936.