Background
Thomas Colby was born at St Margaret's, Rochester, on the 1st of September 1784, a member of a South Wales family.
Thomas Colby was born at St Margaret's, Rochester, on the 1st of September 1784, a member of a South Wales family.
Entering the Royal Engineers Thomas Colby began in 1802 a life-long connexion with the Ordnance Survey department.
The last sheets of this survey were almost ready for issue in that year when he reached the rank of major-general, and according to the rules of the service had to vacate his survey appointment. He was the inventor of the compensation bar, an apparatus used in base-measurements.
Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Society
In 1828 Colby married Elizabeth Hester Boyd.
