James Rennell, The Father of Indian Geography
1794
Rennell, detail from a pencil sketch by G. Dance, the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Profile engraving of James Rennell (1799)
James Rennell memorial. He is buried in the center of the nave of Westminster Abbey. His grave is now unmarked but just had his name, date of death and age on it. But he has a white marble bust in the nearby northwest tower chapel. This is by sculptor Jacob Hagbolt and the inscription reads: "Major James Rennell. Died March 29th, 1830 in his 88th year. His useful life, firm character and high talents are amply exhibited in his works and need no other monument. This tablet therefore merely records that this celebrated man was buried near this spot."
1770
Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel. This beautiful map is orientated to the east, with Paris as the prime meridian. Around the edge are insets of 19 fortresses controlled by the French, the English, or the Nawab of Arcot. It also shows battle sites and notes commanding officer, year of battle, and outcome. It is one of the most finely hand-colored maps in the collection.
1781 - 1830
Royal Society, London, England, United Kingdom
Rennell was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1781.
1791
Rennell received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.
1733
Peninsula Indiae citra Gangem hoc est orae celeberrimae Malabar et Coromandel: cum adjacente insula non minus celebratissima Ceylon.
1770
Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel. This beautiful map is orientated to the east, with Paris as the prime meridian. Around the edge are insets of 19 fortresses controlled by the French, the English, or the Nawab of Arcot. It also shows battle sites and notes commanding officer, year of battle, and outcome. It is one of the most finely hand-colored maps in the collection.
1781
A Bengal atlas: containing maps of the theatre of war and commerce on that side of Hindostan.
1786
A map of Bengal, Bahar, Oude & Allahabad : with part of Agra and Delhi, exhibiting the course of the Ganges from Hurdwar to the sea.
1786
A map of the provinces of Delhi, Agrah, Oude, and Ellahabad: comprehending the countries lying between Delhi and the Bengal-provinces.
1788
A map of Hindoostan, or the Mogul Empire: from the latest authorities. This second state of Rennell’s map shows the extent of British geographical knowledge of South Asia and remained the zenith of maps of India for many years because of its detail and accuracy. It is dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, the esteemed naturalist who travelled with Capt. James Cook on his first voyage, and gained fame for his discoveries of plant and bird species as well as for the promotion of science, especially in his role as President of the Royal Society.
1791
Rennell received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.
1792
Memoir of a map of Hindoostan; or, The Mogul empire: with an introduction, illustrative of the geography and present division of that country: and a map of the countries situated between the heads of the Indian rivers, and the Caspian Sea.
1794
A map of the north part of Hindostan or a geographical survey of the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, Awd, Ellahabad, Agra, and Delhi.
1794
Rennell, detail from a pencil sketch by G. Dance, the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Profile engraving of James Rennell (1799)
James Rennell memorial. He is buried in the center of the nave of Westminster Abbey. His grave is now unmarked but just had his name, date of death and age on it. But he has a white marble bust in the nearby northwest tower chapel. This is by sculptor Jacob Hagbolt and the inscription reads: "Major James Rennell. Died March 29th, 1830 in his 88th year. His useful life, firm character and high talents are amply exhibited in his works and need no other monument. This tablet therefore merely records that this celebrated man was buried near this spot."
Atlas Vallard by James Rennell
Royal Society, London, England, United Kingdom
Rennell was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1781.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0282557415/?tag=2022091-20
1788
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0282449256/?tag=2022091-20
1830
geographer historian oceanographer scientist
James Rennell was born on December 3, 1742, at Upcot in Devon, son of Captain John Rennell and his wife Anne (Clarke). His father was killed in action in the Netherlands in 1747 and his stepfather was unable to provide for all of the children. James and his sister Sarah were taken in by the vicar of Chudleigh.
Rennell received training in surveying in the Royal Navy which he entered in 1763.
After receiving his training in the Royal Navy, Rennell served in the East Indies from 1760 to 1763. During this period he prepared charts of several harbors, having learned surveying on the voyage out from England. He then left the navy and in 1764 was appointed surveyor by the East India Company, first making a survey of the Ganges and then a general survey of Bengal.
In 1767 the company made him surveyor-general. In 1777, suffering from ill-health after wounds received in an affray with a band of fakirs, he returned to England with instructions to prepare a map of India from material at India House, London. He devoted the rest of his life to geographical research, maps, and memoirs.
He studied the works of classical geographers and wrote a commentary on Herodotus. He also acted as a geographical adviser to the African Association, which was founded in 1788, and was rightly regarded as the most eminent British geographer of his period.
In addition to his regional work on Asia and North Africa, Rennell made several important contributions to physical geography. His detailed account of the Ganges, read to the Royal Society in 1781, was drawn on by James Hutton, John Playfair, and Lyell in their geological works. His work on ocean currents, which consisted of various papers from 1793 on and culminated in a posthumous book, An Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic Ocean… (1832), was used by many subsequent writers.
Humboldt visited Rennell in 1827 and consulted him on the subject of currents, and Rennell's map of the currents of the Atlantic appeared in several well-known atlases.
The remaining fifty-three years of his life were spent in London and were devoted to geographical research chiefly among the materials in the East India House. He took up his residence in Suffolk Street, near Portland Place, where his house became a place of meeting for travelers from all parts of the world.
Renell's greatest achievement was in becoming one of the most prominent cartographers of his time earning an honorable name of "the Father of Indian Geography". He continually updated his maps for accuracy and added new geographical information, using indigenous maps and drawings as sources for his maps of the Punjab region. His cartographic methods included gleaning information from earlier maps, measuring distances along roads, establishing the coordinates of control points, and then creating a “graticule” or grid to create his maps. Rennell’s maps were of such accuracy and quality that they were used well into the 19th century.
Rennell, achieved the greatest reputation as an adviser to the African Association organizing the notes and providing the illustrations and route map for Park’s classic work, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. As a result, three editions of Rennell’s Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan appeared between 1783 and 1793. His plan for a comprehensive study of western Asia resulted in a two-volume study of the geography of Herodotus and A Treatise on the Comparative Geography of Western Asia (1831), among other works. Rennell's most valuable works also include the Bengal Atlas (1779), the first approximately correct map of India (1783), and important studies on the geography of northern Africa - apparent in introductions to the Travels of Mungo Park and Hornemann.
Rennell received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1791, and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1825.
Rennell was fully devoted to geography and gained international eminence because of his dedicated work. At some point, his residence even became a gathering place for travelers from around the world.
Rennell was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1781 and was an honorary member of the African Association.
Rennell was "of middle height, well proportioned, with a grave yet a sweet expression of countenance. He was diffident and unassuming, but ever ready to impart information. His conversation was interesting, and he had a remarkable flow of spirits. In all his discussions he was candid and ingenuous."
While in India Rennell had married Jane Thackeray, daughter of Doctor Thomas Thackeray, headmaster of Harrow, and a great-aunt of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. They had two sons Thomas and William, both of whom died without any children, and a daughter Jane who married Admiral Sir Tremayne Rodd.
One of Hastings’ first projects was to begin a Domesday style reckoning of property, land, people, and culture for taxation of revenue. As for Rennell’s part in this, his project was carried out much like a military survey, searching for safe passage through the territory, with information gathering a secondary object.
23 May 1733 – 25 January 1802, a British colonial governor in India. He served as Governor of Bengal from 1769 to 1772.
