The Ordnance Survey story, A very British map
The Ordnance Survey is so-called because it was founded by the Board of Ordnance, the government department responsible for equipping the military. Though many of us perhaps now associate the agency and its maps with leisure, its name serves as a reminder of its origins: having an accurate representation of the nation’s topography was an issue of national security.
The all-important theodolite, however, almost ended up somewhere else entirely.
