Francis,
Many thanks for promoting this. This book will be officially unveiled next Saturday 7 May at the Scottish Maps Forum's "Routes across the Map" seminar, where the editor, Noel Wilkins, will also be speaking on Nimmo.
Alexander Nimmo and his 1806 journal are hardly well-known, so in case others are interested in the contents, the following paras from the prelimary chapters may be helpful:
"In 1806, on Thomas Telford's recommendation, Alexander Nimmo, then Rector of Inverness Academy, was commissioned to undertake a survey of the boundaries of Inverness-shire and to insert them on a draft new map of Scotland - Aaron Arrowsmith's Map of Scotland of 1807. In the course of his survey Nimmo maintained a personal journal in which he recorded a variety of observations and data. It is a valuable and interesting first-hand contemporary account of many aspects of life and change in Inverness-shire and the Highlands at a most important time in their history. It is also a seminal document in Nimmo's personal transformation from schoolmaster to engineer. His experience of the survey would lead ultimately to his resignation from the Rectorship in 1811 to join the Commission for the Bogs of Ireland as an engineer. His journal therefore gives us an insight into the genesis of the approach that he would bring to his surveys of county Kerry and Connemara in 1811-12 and 1813, respectively, and later to all of the west of Ireland where he was government engineer from 1823 to 1832. In his Irish engineering career, which would last until his death in 1832, Nimmo appears to have emulated Telford's iconic Scottish role: what Telford was to the Highlands of Scotland, Nimmo would strive to be to Ireland.
Nimmo's journal is also a useful source of information into the construction of one of Scotland's most important maps, Aaron Arrowsmith's Map of Scotland of 1807. His work confirms the thoroughness and care taken in the compilation of this map, as well as a helpful evaluation of its trustworthiness for different categories of information. Nimmo also provides an engaging account of the practicalities of map and boundary delineation in the early nineteenth century. His journal is an honest and perceptive assessment of the varied utility of different sources of information - maps, charters, shepherds, tenant farmers, estate factors, and landowners - in confirming the complex patterns of land ownership for farms, landed estates and county jurisdictions. More generally and fundamentally, through his comments on mapping and surveying, he illustrates the changing nature of map-making and the values that both drove it and were reflected in it, at a key moment in time."
Chris Fleet
Senior Map Curator
National Library of Scotland
159 Causewayside
EDINBURGH
EH9 1PH
United Kingdom.
Tel. 0131 623 3973
Fax. 0131 623 3971
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
View maps website: http://maps.nls.uk
________________________________________
From: A forum for issues related to map & spatial data librarianship [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francis Herbert
Sent: 28 April 2011 15:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832): civil engineer, surveyor, geologist: new (2011) book
Alexander Nimmo's Inverness survey & journal, 1806 / edited by Noël P. Wilkins. - 1st ed. - Dublin : Royal Irish Academy, 2011. - xv [i.e. xiv], 192 [i.e. 191]p. : ill., maps, portr. [photogr. of bust in Roy. Dublin Soc.] ; 19 cm. - Bibliogr.: p.174-82. - 'Topographical and placename index' (to the Inverness survey): p.186-92. - Notes at end of each chapter. - Contents: Introduction : the original manuscript and its transcription / N.P. Wilkins (p.1 - 12) - Alexander Nimmo : Rector of Inverness Royal Academy / Robert Preece (p.18 - 29) - The Scottish Highlands and Ireland in the time of Alexander Nimmo / James Hunter (p.30 - 47) - A cartographic perambulation around Alexander Nimmo's Inverness-shire journal / Christopher Fleet (p.48 - 65) - On becoming an engineer : Alexander Nimmo's survey and his engineering career / N.P. Wilkins (p.66 - 88) - 'Journal along the North East & South of Inverness Shire. Ends at Fort William' / Alexander Nimmo (p.[89] or [90] [!] - 173). - ISBN 978-1-904890-74-4
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