Catalogue description Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Minute Books

The first official hydrographic survey of British waters was begun in 1683 on instructions from King Charles II. The survey took 10 years to complete and the results were published at the surveyor, Captain Greenvile Collins' own expense.

For the next hundred years captains and masters of ships were expected to provide their own navigational charts, and some naval officers undertook their own hydrographic surveys. A few were specifically instructed to carry out surveys, and notable among the officers so charged, were Captains James Cook and George Vancouver. However, all published their own survey results, relying on sales revenue to cover their expenses; but masters of HM ships were required to deposit their original survey drawings with the Admiralty.

This process did not result in consistent standards, or reliable charting, and led to a demand for better charts to be made available to captains and masters of naval vessels; not least because of the high number of ships lost through navigational error.

The post of Hydrographer to the Board of the Admiralty was created in 1795, following an order in Council issued by King George III. Alexander Dalrymple, the first incumbent in the post, was charged with selecting and compiling charts (from the archive of existing survey drawings) and making those charts available to the Royal Navy.

However, another 25 years passed before the establishment of the Hydrographic Department Surveying Service. The Service was tasked with world-wide surveying and supported by a processing and publishing arm which was able to supply Admiralty ships (and the general public) with official high quality Admiralty charts as they became available.

It was the second hydrographer, Captain Thomas Hurd (in post from 1808 to 1823) who first embarked on a pro-active surveying policy in the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). By 1817, Hurd had obtained permission to gather together a specialised core of naval officers and seamen, selected for their knowledge of maritime surveying, and commanding their own specially equipped survey vessels.

It had previously been the custom for surveys on foreign stations to be initiated by the station Commander, and from 1809 Hurd began to commission vessels for survey work. But by 1821 the Hydrographer had the capacity to instruct ships to undertake foreign surveys. Hurd died in 1825; his successor, the innovative Rear Admiral Sir Edward Parry, was noted for his skills as an explorer rather than as a hydrographer, and served for the relatively short period of six years during which he continued Hurd's emphasis on high quality navigational information.

The fourth hydrographer, Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (appointed in 1829) was able to deploy the Surveying Service to carry out hydrographic surveys at home and abroad; and to undertake other scientific observations at sea. At home, the Hydrographic Department's onshore staff received the results of these surveys and observations from which they compiled and published Admiralty charts and, encouraged by the diligent Beaufort, other safety-critical navigational information for distribution world-wide.

The minute books in this series, begin just after Hurd's death, during Parry's appointment and leading up to the beginning of Beaufort's long service as Hydrographer. They cover almost a century of Hydrographic Department activity. During which time there were a number of major developments within the Hydrographic Department activities.

An Admiralty Meteorological Service had been set up (1918) and absorbed into the Air Ministry's Meteorological Office (1920), leaving behind a specialist Naval Services Division within the Hydrographic Department.

In 1918 the Admiralty convened a conference to consider the continued use of Greenwich Time at sea. This conference recommended the adoption of time zones based on hours ahead or behind Greenwich Time.

The first International Hydrographic Conference was held in 1919, and in 1921 the hydrographer played a lead role in the establishment of the International Hydrographic Bureau set up in Monaco.

By 1922 printing of Admiralty charts had been brought under Admiralty control through the setting up of the Admiralty Chart Establishment at Cricklewood.