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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2000-02 > 0949531458


From: Eve McLaughlin <>
Subject: Re: Surveyors - qualifications/registration
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 22:44:18 +0000


for the caluclations
>A James William BATTEN was a surveyor in Reading about the 1870s.
>
>What qualifications would he have had ?
probably good numeric skills and a real ability to draw plans well,
also to visualise and draw buildings in elevation from the plan and vice
versa. Those employed in contruction had also to be able to judge the
best line for railways and roads, so some knowledge of sopil condition
etc was needed/
>
>Would he have needed to be registered, and if so, with whom?
most of the 'surveyors' of the period were local parish and then
district council officials, selected for the above abilities, not
professionally qualified. The large railway and construction companies
may have demanded some training, but probably training on the job from
an existing surveyor.
>
>The big unanswerable question is: why did he and his family emigrate to New
>Zealand in 1879? I would have expected that his work in England would have
>paid well and that he might not have expected to better himself in a new
>country.

The big time for surveying was when the enclosures were at their
height, asnd then the building of railways. This sort of work was
reducing in some areas and he may have seen greater opportunity in a new
country, - all those fields to measure, estates to map and towns to lay
out. Exciting prospect.

--
Eve McLaughlin

Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians
Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

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