Brigadier Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. ...

Martin Hotine CMG CBE (17 June 1898 – 12 November 1968) was the head of the Trigonometrical and Levelling Division of the

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

responsible for the 26-year-long

retriangulation of Great Britain __NOTOC__ The retriangulation of Great Britain was a triangulation project carried out between 1935 and 1962 that sought to improve the accuracy of maps made of Great Britain. Data gathered from the retriangulation replaced data gathered during ...

(1936–1962) and was the first Director General of 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 ...

(1946–1955). He served on the North-West Frontier during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and later in the

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

n and

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

n campaigns. He has been described as "decisive, ingenious and tough".

Cartography

Hotine was responsible for the design of the triangulation pillars constructed during the Geodetic resurvey of Britain. 6,173 of these were built. They provided a solid base for the

theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building and ...

s used by the survey teams during the survey, thereby improving the accuracy of the readings obtained. They are sometimes referred to as "Hotine Pillars". In the 1940s, Hotine developed a map projection for the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The ar ...

and

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

that is known as the Hotine oblique Mercator projection.

Personal life

Hotine was married to Kate Amelia Hotine (née Pearson)(1895–1987) whose nickname to family and friends was 'Ajax'.

Honours

*1947

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 ...

Founder's Medal "For research work in Air Survey ... and for his cartographic work."List of Past Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal Winners
/ref> *1955

Photogrammetric Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...

Society's first President's Medal *1964 The Institution of Royal Engineers' Gold Medal

Publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotine, Martin 1898 births 1968 deaths Royal Engineers officers British Army personnel of World War II British Army personnel of World War I English surveyors People educated at Southend High School for Boys Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Commanders of the Order of the British Empire