Major General William Roy, surveyor and cartographer. Born at Miltonhead, near Carluke (South Lanarkshire). Following the Jacobite Rebellion led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, Roy was directed to produce a map of Scotland to enable more effective policing of the country. This he undertook between 1747 and 1755 and the hand-drawn result can be seen today in the British Library (London), having been transferred from the British Museum in 1973.
In 1783-84 he conducted observations for determining the relative positions of the French and English royal observatories. His measurement of a base-line for that purpose on Hounslow Heath (which crosses the present Heathrow Airport) in 1784, the germ of all subsequent surveys of the United Kingdom, gained him in 1785 the Copley medal of the Royal Society. Roy's measurements (not fully utilised until 1787, when the Paris and Greenwich observatories were properly connected) form the basis of the topographical survey of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Sussex. He was finishing an account of this work for the Phil. Trans. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society) when he died.
These surveys were made for the most part using the new Ramsden theodolite which Roy had commissioned from Jesse Ramsden, and were the start of what is often called the Principal Triangulation of Great Britain and is the basis for today’s Ordnance Survey maps.
Roy was also a noted antiquarian, studying Roman remains. His Military Antiquities of the Romans in Scotland was published three years after his death.
Visit the trig point nearby at N55 43.491 W003 52.293 with it's tribute to Major General Roy.Don't forget you can log this as GC45CC (Ye Ole Survey Monuments ) http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC45CC