Norman J. W. Thrower (1919–2020) was an American scholar noted for his work in history, geography, and surveying practices. His areas of expertise included mapping,

surveying 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 ...

Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...

, Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley. He was also a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and authored several books.

Personal life

Norman Thrower was born in England in 1919 and died in 2020. He was a veteran of World War II and served in India. After the war, Thrower became involved with the Directorate of Colonial Surveys which was later re-named the

Directorate of Overseas Surveys The Ordnance Survey International or Ordnance Survey Overseas Directorate its predecessors built an archive of air photography, map and survey records for the United Kingdom from 1946 to 1999. The Ordnance Survey International Collection (formerly ...

Professional life

In 1953, Thrower was awarded his Bachelor of Arts in geography from the University of Virginia. Subsequently, he attended the University of Wisconsin and earned his Ph.D. in 1958, also in geography. The subject of Thrower’s dissertation was

cadastral surveying Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, a ...

, and in 1966 the dissertation was published by the Association of American Geographers. In 1957, Thrower began working at the University of California, Los Angeles as a professor and retired from the university in 1990. While at UCLA, Thrower specialized in cartography, remote sensing, and Europe. He was associated with the director of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and directed the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Programs at the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He was also the director of UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Thrower has notes, papers, and correspondence archived at UCLA. In addition to his work at UCLA, Thrower was also involved with other organizations. From 1973 to 1975, he was President of the

Society for the History of Discoveries Society for the History of Discoveries (or SHD), founded in 1960, is an international, United States-based, organization formed to stimulate interest in teaching, research, and publishing the history of geographical exploration. Its members inclu ...

. Thrower held the position as the founding President of the California Map Society in 1979. And from 1989 to 1992 Thrower served as President for the State of California’s

Commission.

Selected bibliography of Thrower’s works

*''Maps & Man; An Examination of Cartography in Relation to Culture and Civilization''. Prentice-Hall, 1972. *''The Three Voyages of Edmond Halley in the Paramore, 1698-1701''. Ashgate, 2010. *''Sir Francis Drake and the famous voyage, 1577-1580 : essays commemorating the quadricentennial of Drake's circumnavigation of the earth''. University of California Press, 1984.

References

Websites

* * 1919 births 2020 deaths 20th-century cartographers 20th-century American male writers Historians of cartography University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Virginia alumni British emigrants to the United States {{improve categories, date=July 2021