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Trelawney William Saunders [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XLIII, (1911), pp. 42-43.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1911 Dartmouth meeting. An extensive obituary to Mr Trelawney Saunders, FRGS, an internationally recognised cartographer, map-seller and geographical authority, appeared in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 1910), pp. 363-365 (3 pages). The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Saunders was. born at Plymouth on 16 April, 1821, and at the age of eighteen went to London to join the famous firm of Samuel Bagster and Sons, travelling by coach as an outside passenger and being nearly frozen to death while grossing Salisbury Plain in a snowstorm. In 1846 he set up shop at No. 6 Charing Cross, and was the first map seller in London to issue a classified catalogue of the best foreign as well as English publications. In 1851 he produced a weather chart of the British Isles and the neighbouring coasts, and in 1852 he was joined by Mr. Edward Stanford as a partner in his business, which partnership, however, was dissolved in the following year. In 1853 Mr. Saunders published a book on The Asiatic Mediterranean and its Australian Port, in which he advocated the establishment by the British Government of a settlement on the Gulf of Carpentaria - a scheme supported by Captain Lort Stokes. R.N., who had surveyed the Gulf when in command of H.M.S. Beagle. In 1857 he propounded a scheme for a National College at Gnoll Castle, in the Vale of Neath, one of its objects being "the practical application of Science to the public service." Owing to insufficient support the scheme failed, and Mr. Saunders accepted an offer from Mr. Edward Stanford to organize and superintend a geographical department in his business. While with Mr. Stanford he edited a series of library maps, which were drawn and engraved by Dr. Alexander Keith Johnston, of Edinburgh; a series of school wall maps which are still in favour; he superintended a survey of London, plotted on the scale of twelve inches to the mile, and in collaboration with Sir George Grove he prepared a series of Biblical maps for Dr. Smith's Atlas of Ancient Geography. In 1868 Mr. Saunders was appointed Assistant Geographer to the India Office, and retired from the post in 1885, after seventeen years' service. While holding this appointment he classified the valuable collection of maps, etc., of the India Office, publishing, in 1878, A Catalogue of Manuscript and printed Reports, Field Books, Memoirs, Maps, etc., of Indian Surveys (672 pp., 4to), a work so successful that it was adopted by General Walker as a model for the Catalogue of Surveys in the head office at Calcutta. Also, maps in the possession of the Government of India were made available to the general public, and, in collaboration with Sir Clements Markham, a valuable critical series of maps of India was produced and published in 1885 as an atlas. In 1870 he published his famous Sketch of the Mountains and Rivers of India, in which he described a range of mountains on the north of the Indus-Sampu Valley, which he called the Gangri Mountains. Forty years afterwards his prophetic vision was confirmed by the travels and researches of Dr. Sven Hedin. He also wrote many papers and articles on Biblical Geography, one of which, An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine, was published by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1881. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1846, and became an officer of that society in 1854, and was well known as a geographical expert at the meetings of the British Association and other learned societies. He joined the Devonshire Association as a life member in 1887. On 1 October, 1844, he married Catherine Ann, second daughter of Commander Thomas Edward Knight, R.N., and had issue six children, five of whom survive him. After his retirement from the public service he lived at Newton Abbot, where he died in his ninetieth year on 22 July, 1910, his closing years being saddened through blindness and loss of memory.