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Roy was a well-regarded military map maker, military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian.  By age 20, he was already in the employ of the Board of Ordinance at Edinburgh Castle, where he drafted an official map of Culloden just after the battle in 1746. Following the end of the Jacobite rising, Roy participated in the survey of Scotland, which produced the document known as the Duke of Cumberland’s Map.

The survey was interrupted by the Seven Years’ War and Roy was appointed an ensign in the Corps of Engineers and a practitioner-engineer in the Board of Ordnance. He eventually attained the rank of major-general in the former and director and lieutenant-colonel in the latter. Roy served in Europe during the Seven Years’ War, including at the Battle of Minden. It was there that Roy prepared overlays to more easily show his commanders changes in troop movements, an innovation that was eventually adopted more generally.

After the war Roy moved to London, where he began to advocate for a national survey. In 1767 he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society. He led a survey of the coasts of all British possessions and participated in the Anglo-French Survey measuring the distance between Paris and Greenwich. This triangulation was eventually continued in the form of the Ordnance Survey, a project commenced a year after Roy died and with his work in mind. 


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