A plaque in Castlegate in Jedburgh John Ainslie (22 April 1745 – 29 February 1828) was a Scottish

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

and

cartographer Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

Life

Ainslie was born in

Jedburgh Jedburgh (; gd, Deadard; sco, Jeddart or ) is a town and former royal burgh in the Scottish Borders and the traditional county town of the historic county of Roxburghshire, the name of which was randomly chosen for Operation Jedburgh in su ...

, the youngest son of John Ainslie, a druggist,

Writer to the Signet The Society of Writers to His Majesty's Signet is a private society of Scottish solicitors, dating back to 1594 and part of the College of Justice. Writers to the Signet originally had special privileges in relation to the drawing up of document ...

and burgess of the burgh. He was educated at

Jedburgh Grammar School Jedburgh Grammar School is a state secondary school in Jedburgh, Scotland, with around 440 pupils, 40 teaching staff, and 15 non-teaching staff. History While the first institution bearing the name Jedburgh Grammar School was founded in the 15t ...

. He began his career as an apprentice to the "Geographer to King George III", engraver and publisher

Thomas Jefferys Thomas Jefferys (c. 1719 – 1771), "Geographer to King George III", was an English cartographer who was the leading map supplier of his day.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. He engraved and printed maps for government and other offi ...

and worked as a surveyor and engraver for the English County series of maps. After Jefferys' death he returned to Scotland where he surveyed Scottish counties, engraving and publishing the maps. His primary focus was on the coasts and islands of Scotland. The quality of his maps challenged others to improve their mapping style making maps more clear and easy to read. From 1787 to 1789 Ainslie worked on a new nine sheet map of Scotland publishing it in 1789.. The map was a landmark in the improvement of the outline of Scotland and for the first time showed the

Great Glen The Great Glen ( gd, An Gleann Mòr ), also known as Glen Albyn (from the Gaelic "Glen of Scotland" ) or Glen More (from the Gaelic ), is a glen in Scotland running for from Inverness on the edge of Moray Firth, in an approximately straight ...

as a straight line and

Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated b ...

Mull Mull may refer to: Places *Isle of Mull, a Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides ** Sound of Mull, between the Isle of Mull and the rest of Scotland * Mount Mull, Antarctica *Mull Hill, Isle of Man * Mull, Arkansas, a place along Arkansas Highway ...

, and

Islay Islay ( ; gd, Ìle, sco, Ila) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The isl ...

shown with more accuracy than had previously been seen. He worked as a surveyor on several civil engineering projects including the

Forth and Clyde canal The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allo ...

with

Robert Whitworth Robert Whitworth (1734 – 30 March 1799) was an English land surveyor and engineer, who learnt his trade under John Smeaton and James Brindley, and went on to become one of the leading canal engineers of his generation. Biography Whitworth was ...

, Charles Rennie on

Saltcoats Saltcoats ( gd, Baile an t-Salainn) is a town on the west coast of North Ayrshire, Scotland. The name is derived from the town's earliest industry when salt was harvested from the sea water of the Firth of Clyde, carried out in small cottages al ...

harbour and the Glasgow to

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the 'Three Towns'. Ardrossan is located on the east shore ...

canal. John was also a book-seller, which helped him in writing and publishing works of his own. He wrote the standard text for his profession, the "Comprehensive treatise on Land Surveying comprising the Theory and Practice of all its Branches". On 27 October 1776 he married Christian, the daughter and heiress of Jedburgh merchant Thomas Caverhill. In Edinburgh in the 1780s they lived on Parliament Square on the

Royal Mile The Royal Mile () is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's ''Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century'' (1901), des ...

. He died at 72 Nicolson StreetEdinburgh Post Office Directory 1827 in Edinburgh on the 29 February 1828 and is buried at

Jedburgh Abbey Jedburgh Abbey, a ruined Augustinian abbey which was founded in the 12th century, is situated in the town of Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders north of the border with England at Carter Bar. History Towards the middle of the 9th century, when ...

. Other sources suggest he was married to Mary Lookup and they had two children. No dates provided. His burial is on FindAGrave.co

Maps

Many o
Ainslie's maps
are in the collection of

National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in the ...

including:
The county of Fife
published in 1775

in 9 sheets, published in 1789

published in 1780
City of Edinburgh
published in 1780 * The Old and New Town of Edinburgh and Leith, 1804

published in 1821

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ainslie, John 1745 births 1828 deaths People from Jedburgh People educated at Jedburgh Grammar School Scottish cartographers Scottish surveyors 18th-century cartographers 18th-century Scottish people 19th-century Scottish people