HYDROGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT Charts, 1769-1824 Reel M406
AUSTRALIAN JOINT COPYING PROJECT HYDROGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT Charts, 1769-1824 Reel M406 Hydrographic Department Ministry of Defence Taunton, Somerset TA1 2DN National Library of Australia State Library of New South Wales Copied: 1987 1 HISTORICAL NOTE The Hydrographical Office of the Admiralty was created by an Order-in-Council of 12 August 1795 which stated that it would be responsible for ‘the care of such charts, as are now in the office, or may hereafter be deposited’ and for ‘collecting and compiling all information requisite for improving Navigation, for the guidance of the commanders of His Majesty’s ships’. Alexander Dalrymple, who had been Hydrographer to the East India Company since 1799, was appointed the first Hydrographer. In 1797 the Hydrographer’s staff comprised an assistant, a draughtsman, three engravers and a printer. It remained a small office for much of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, under Captain Thomas Hurd, who succeeded Dalrymple as Hydrographer in 1808, a regular series of marine charts were produced and in 1814 the first surveying vessels were commissioned. The first Catalogue of Admiralty Charts appeared in 1825. In 1817 the Australian-born navigator Phillip Parker King was supplied with instruments by the Hydrographic Department which he used on his surveying voyages on the Mermaid and the Bathurst. Archives of the Hydrographic Department The Australian Joint Copying Project microfilmed a considerable quantity of the written records of the Hydrographic Department. They include letters, reports, sailing directions, remark books, extracts from logs, minute books and survey data books, mostly dating from 1779 to 1918. They can be found on reels M2318-37 and M2436-67.
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