D.176: Sextants, numbers, and the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty.

Autor/in	Barford, Megan
Titel	D.176: Sextants, numbers, and the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty.
Quelle	In: History of science, (2017) 4, S.431-456 PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext (2); PDF als Volltext (3) Verfügbarkeit
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0073-2753
DOI	10.1177/0073275317712817
Schlagwörter	Ships; Instrumentation; Hydrography; Sextants; Surveying; Public service; 19th century; Hydrographic surveying
Abstract	In the 1830s and 1840s, the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty developed and oversaw one of the major state-run surveying projects of the nineteenth century. This involved a range of instruments whose circulation was increasingly regulated. Using extant museum collections and the correspondence of those involved, this article explores how such objects can be used to discuss both bureaucratic organization at a time of expanding government and the complex issues of sociability involved in hydrographic surveying. Surveying officers worked in a context in which the propriety of property on public service was a pervasive question. Instruments might be given as gifts between officers, appropriated as recompense, absorbed as state property, and disputed between friends. The ownership, provision, and treatment of instruments in particular could be used to demonstrate an officer’s peculiar zeal or institutional neglect. To those outside the ship, what was understood as over-instrumentation became amusing spectacle. On board, their use was part of a deeply hierarchical order of work in regions of colonial and mercantile importance. In examining the relationships around these instruments of survey, the paper proposes a richer understanding of the material culture of hydrography in the early nineteenth century.
Erfasst von	OLC
Update	2023/3/07