George Passman Tate,

FRGS The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, (1856–?) was an

Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...

surveyor and authority on the

history of Afghanistan The history of Afghanistan as a State (polity), state began in 1823 as the Emirate of Afghanistan after the exile of the Durrani dynasty, Sadozai monarchy to Herat (1793-1863), Herat. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire, conside ...

Career as Surveyor

Tate was employed as Assistant Superintendent of the

Surveyor General of India The Surveyor General of India is the Head of Department of Survey of India, A department under the Ministry of Science and Technology of Government of India. The Surveyor General is also the most senior member of the Survey of India Service, an org ...

and was deployed to conduct critical surveys in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

such as Baluch-

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

Boundary Commission (1895‒96) and

Seistan Sistān ( fa, سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastān ( fa, سَكاستان, "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day Eastern Iran ( Sistan and Baluchestan Province) and Southern Afghanistan (N ...

Arbitration Mission (1903‒5). Tate (along with J.W. Newland) also conducted surveys in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

in 1899 to 1900 and believed to be the namesake of

Tate's Cairn Tate's Cairn or Tai Lo Shan () is a mountain in Hong Kong at in height. It is one of the peaks of the Kowloon Ridge and falls within Ma On Shan Country Park. The peak began to appear on colonial maps in the 1860s but remained unnamed until the ...

(the hill was renamed sometime after Tate's time in Hong Kong).

Personal

Beyond his year of birth and his surveyor career little is known about Tate and his later years. He was a member of

The Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...

and a fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

Selected publications

*''The frontiers of Baluchistan: Travels on the borders of Persia and Afghanistan''. Witherby & Co., London, 1909. *''Seistan: A memoir on the history, topography, ruins, and people of the country, in four parts''. Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta, 1910-1912. *
The Kingdom of Afghanistan: A historical sketch
'. Printed by Bennett Coleman & Co., Published at the ''Times of India'' offices, Bombay & Calcutta, 1911. *''Kalat: A memoir on the country and family of the Ahmadzai Khans of Kalat &c.'' Calcutta, 1896.

References

Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society British people in colonial India 1856 births Year of death missing {{academic-stub