Lords Sitting of 19 June 1891

THE ORDNANCE SURVEY.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  *EARL SPENCER,in rising to ask the Lord President whether any system exists for the revision from time to time of the Ordnance Survey on the 25-inch scale for the United Kingdom; and, if no periodical revision is now made, whether Her Majesty's Government will take the necessary steps for carrying it out, either by proposing an annual Vote or otherwise, said: My Lords, I do not think I shall be transgressing the ordinary Rules of your Lordships' House if before I put the question I explain to your Lordships the reason why I do so. First of all, I wish to say that, though I have addressed the question on the Notice Paper to the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council, I am not quite sure whether I am right in doing so, for it is not always easy to know to what Department particular branches of a particular subject belong. Take, for instance, a question which is most intimately connected with maps and surveys—I mean the question of boundaries. The question of boundaries is dealt with under Acts of Parliament in a very remarkable way. Under the Tithe Acts power is given in certain cases for the Tithe Commissioners to settle boundaries. Then we have the Local Government Board, who have to settle the question of dividing parishes. Then we have the Privy Council, to whom are referred questions of now boundaries of boroughs. But if those new boundaries of boroughs have to be altered you have to go to the Local Government Board. Again, if the wards of a new township have to be settled you have to go to the Homo Office. That shows a considerable confusion, I think, in the arrangement of subjects of a cognate kind. Now, to any one of those Departments I might have gone on the question of the Ordnance Survey, because every one of those matters to which I have referred has a very material bearing upon the question of surveying and of maps. I remember when I had the honour to fill the
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  place which the noble Viscount now fills I had some very interesting work to carry out in connection with the geological survey. That was under the Science and Art Department at South Kensington. Whether it remains so now or not I do not know; but, at all events, I believe I am right in saying that the question of the Ordnance Survey has now wandered to the new Ministry of Agriculture, and that it is from the representative of that Department I must obtain my answer to-night. I have no doubt that the Lord Privy Seal, who, I believe, does answer for the Minister of Agriculture in this House, will be able to give me the information I desire. Now, my Lords, may I say a few words on the importance of having accurate surveys and accurate maps? It has often been thought that the question of the Ordnance Survey is taken up generally on behalf of the landowners of the country No doubt, to landowners accurate maps and surveys are of great importance, but I think there are others who are much more—or, at all events, equally—interested in having correct maps, including both the Central Government and Local Bodies throughout the country. There are thousands of questions continually arising, for the solution of which it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to extremely accurate maps. Take the question of laying out a town and the planning of new streets. For that very accurate maps are required. Take the case of laying down drains in a sanitary area, the questions of roads and of encroachments. There may be 1,000 other questions in which the Local Authorities or Municipalities are called upon to act, and for which they require the most accurate maps. Lately on the County Council I remember we had to make use very freely of the 6-in. maps of the Ordnance Survey. We have had to do so with regard to new roads and streets, and with regard to encroachments in the streets; and I remember many instances where the work of the County Council would have been enormously increased if we had not had very accurate maps for defining areas in making orders relating to swine fever and pleuro-pneumonia. Happily, now matters connected with pleuro-pneumonia have been transferred to the Central Government, but the Central

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  Government require accurate maps, just as we did, in dealing with them. When we had, two years ago, a very severe outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in my county, we had to lay out areas with the aid of these accurate maps, and we employed the 6-in. Ordnance Survey in doing that work. Our work, as it was, was very difficult, but I am sure it would have been increased tenfold if we had not had the assistance of these maps. Maps, therefore, my Lords, are of the utmost importance for all Local Government purposes in the country, and it is on that account that I am anxious to take up the subject and to detain your Lordships upon it for a few minutes to-night. There is another point on which even your Lordships are very much interested, and to which I, for one, attach the utmost importance, and that is the cheap transfer of land. Without accurate maps the cheap transfer of land—and of maps, moreover, which have some legal status, if I may so apply the word—will be almost impossible. With regard to that we may point to the Sister Country, which I see in one of the interesting Reports made from the Ordnance Department is supposed to be 25, if not 50, years ahead of England in regard to this question of maps; I refer to Ireland. In Ireland the Ordnance Survey maps have a legal status. The Valuation Acts refer to the Ordnance maps, and they are always used in regard to all valuation cases; and, furthermore, all the transactions of the enormously important Department, the Encumbered Estates Court (now the Landed Estates Court), to which even greater importance will probably in a few weeks be attached, are carried through by means of the Ordnance Survey. It may be said that we have maps in this country. I maintain that they are not accurate maps. Having made some inquiries upon the subject, find those which are most ordinarily used as standard maps in this country are the maps connected with the Tithe Commutation Acts. I venture to say that in a great many cases those maps are extremely inaccurate. I have had an instance given to me where the tithe map of one parish in Cheshire differed from the Ordnance Survey by 262 acres, 2 roods, and 23 poles; and among other inaccuracies fields of the size of 70 acres were omitted from the survey. There are
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  other instances of parishes in Northumberland, I think, where fields of the extent of 50 acres have been omitted. Therefore, those maps are, it must be acknowledged, in a great many cases absolutely inaccurate. Other glaring inaccuracies have been pointed out by experts. If we take the question of assessments in this country this matter is of the same importance. Not long ago a very interesting discussion took place upon a Paper which was read by Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, who is the head of the Department at Southampton, on this very subject. In the Paper he says:—
  "The areas for some parishes in the Poor Law Return, 1882, are as much as from 1,400 to 1,600 acres less than the true area ascertained under the Survey."
  In one parish he says the area is 84 acres less, and that the Valuation List directed by Statute to be made by the overseers of parishes is not obtained by the Ordnance Survey. Therefore, I do not believe, except for the Ordnance Survey, we have in our possession maps of the necessary accuracy. I have heard it stated that the Ordnance Survey maps are not always accurate, and that they are deficient in some cases. They may be so in certain minute respects. I have taken pains to ascertain whether this is the case to any extent, but I cannot find that except in very minute points they are anything but extremely accurate on all essential points. I find in a discussion, which took place on this matter before the Society of Arts, that a large surveyor in London speaks of the use he has made of the Ordnance Survey, and he states that he has always used it with confidence. Your Lordships are probably aware that in towns the Ordnance Survey is on a very large scale—that is to say, it is on a scale of 176·72 inches to a mile. This gentleman in the discussion states that he invariably uses the Ordnance Survey maps of London, and finds them the very best means of measuring properties which come within his business. He says he has measured hundreds of buildings from those maps and never found an error in them, and that for certain purposes he never thought of taking measurements in any other way. With regard to the minuteness of the maps which some people object to, there was an interesting Report issued in a

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  Blue Book on the 31st December, 1889, and one remarkable instance is given there of the extreme minuteness of the survey. It is alluding to the survey in towns, and it states that the general nature of the work may be gathered from the fact that it is on a scale sufficiently large to show details down to the size of a door-step or of an area-grating. Now, I do not know whether it is quite necessary to have the size of an area-grating or of a door-step, but it shows the extreme accuracy of the work done. I think I have made out a case in favour of accurate maps for the public use and for the use of Local Bodies. I can also say that the Ordnance Survey maps are excellent for their purpose. Possibly they may be improved in certain particulars, but in the main they are admirably suited for the work required of them, just as in Ireland the maps which I believe are on a 6in. scale have been of enormouse use, and I believe that in very few cases—I do not say in none, but in hardly any cases—have the acreages and measurements of those maps and valuations been questioned. Then I say it would be a very desirable thing to have the same maps used and given a legal status in England. That being so, it is impossible to deny that it is essential that these maps should be revised. Many of these maps were made 30 or 40 years ago. "We all know what an enormous change is going on over the whole country. Look at London itself. London has doubled within the last 50 or 60 years. I see in one of these Papers it is stated that the area covered in Yorkshire and Lancashire by towns has increased from 80,389 acres to 120,000 acres in round figures, since, I rather think, 1842. But besides that there are other very remarkable changes going on. This Report, which I need not say is an exceedingly interesting one, and familiar to some of your Lordships, contains some account of the re-survey of Lancashire and Yorkshire. That part of the country was surveyed in the years from 1842 to 1854 on a 6-in. scale, but it has been thought necessary (and no doubt it was necessary) to bring it down to the present day by the 25-in. scale map. Some very remarkable statements are made with regard to the alterations there. The alteration which I quoted of the town area measuring so much more
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  at present, having risen from 80,000 odd to 120,000 acres, is stated in that Report, and that change has taken place since between the years 1842 and 1854. With regard to the changes on the east coast in Yorkshire, which is the only part of the coast as yet surveyed, the sea has encroached about 215 feet upon the land since 1852. That is a remarkable change which ought to be recorded. Yesterday we had in this House a very interesting Debate on the question of subsidences of land, particularly in Cheshire, and I remember my noble Friend (Lord Thurlow) said it was not necessary, and never would be necessary, to apply Compensation for Subsidence Acts to Middlesbrough, because there would never be any collapse of the ground there, as a rocky sub-stratum exists between the salt and the surface. That may be so, but it is not the case elsewhere. I do not know whether that bears upon the present subject, but there are some remarkable figures with regard to subsidences in this Report. At one one point on the line between Warrington and Addlington the ground has sunk as much as 6·52 feet, and the bench mark in Wigan has sunk 5·825 feet. In the latter case, the leveller observed a subsidence of one foot in 12 months. The Report also states that the ground in the neighbourhood of Barnsley and Bother-ham has sunk over an area of 100 square miles as much as five feet in some places. That is a remarkable fact, and one which is probably hardly known even to those of your Lordships who live in that district. At the same time, it is surely an important thing to have such facts as those properly recorded, and I think the existence of such facts is a very strong argument in favour of some periodical revision of these maps being made. With regard to the question of revision, the whole question of the survey was made a battle ground in another place. All kinds of Orders and Resolutions were passed a certain number of years ago with regard to the different Ordnance Surveys. Happily, that has now to a certain extent subsided, and the Ordnance Survey work has been going steadily on, but still there is considerable anxiety and a considerable amount of suspicion about this work, and great difficulty exists in getting it thoroughly carried on. How-

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  ever, in the year 1886 the Treasury were apparently stirred up to the responsibility of their position, and they did then issue an Order allowing a certain sum for revision. At the same time, with the usual extreme caution of the Treasury, they imposed such terms upon the Ordnance Survey officials that the revision was practically stopped, and the whole of the money had to be directed to the completion of the 25-in. survey, which did not extend to Yorkshire or Lancashire. However, the principle has been granted, and I think it is of the utmost importance that a revision should take place. From the few remarks I have made, your Lordships will see that unless a revision takes place these maps will become and are of no practical utility whatever in large districts which are rapidly developing into town districts, with houses growing up almost in thousands every year all over the country and in districts where great changes have taken place by land being reclaimed from the sea and by other causes. Therefore, I say it is essential that a regular revision should take place, and I believe we should be almost throwing away the vast sums of money which have been expended upon the survey if this is not done. No doubt a great many arrears have to be made up, but, as I understand from the various Reports which I have had before me on the subject, if the arrears are made up and the survey is substantially completed, the authorities responsible can easily arrange for a periodical revision of country districts every 15 years, and of town districts more frequently. That, I think, is of great importance, and I sincerely hope Her Majesty's Government will agree with me as to its importance—that they will be able to tell your Lordships that the Treasury will be ready at once with the alacrity which they always show in matters of this sort, to come forward and meet this demand by providing the funds necessary for making this revision; or, if they are not ready, that other Members of Her Majesty's Government will bring pressure to bear upon the Treasury in order that this most necessary and essential thing shall be done; that the Ordnance Survey, which is so useful for all Local and Public Bodies, shall be periodically revised. Otherwise, I really believe that the
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  work, which has hitherto been done on a large scale, and with great accuracy and zeal, will be entirely thrown away.
  *LORD THRING: Before the Lord President answers the question, I wish to suggest another matter to him. I am perfectly aware of the accuracy with which the maps of the Ordnance Survey are made for scientific purposes. I believe there are no other maps in the world which are made with such completeness, but I have to plead for something to be done with regard to the smaller ordnance maps. I want to plead for the wants of the ordinary traveller and people in the country who have to use those maps. The difficulty is that they do not show to the eye clearly the differences in the surface of the country. They do not show clearly to the eye the difference between main and other roads, and between footpaths which are public and others which merely lead into farmyards. I am perfectly aware there is a difficulty in determining these questions, but I have consulted one of the Ordnance Survey officers, and he tells me there would be no more difficulty if the maps were "exhibited" as it is called, in making clear to the eye the footpaths and different classes of roads than is found now in determining the different county boundaries. It would cause but little more expense, and would be absolutely invaluable to the country. I am sure that those of your Lordships who have travelled in Switzerland or any other of the countries where on the maps the whole surface of the country is delineated to the eye have found that you can guide yourselves and easily find your way by the maps. There is no country in Europe, I say with confidence, so badly mapped out for the ordinary purposes of the traveller as in England. Then I asked the officer whom I consulted the other day whether the maps were well adapted for military purposes, and he said they certainly were not; that they were extremely accurate, but do not show the surface of the country. What I have to plead for is this: that in future the maps—I am not competent to show how it is to be done, but I believe it is done, by exaggerating the size of the roads and footpaths, and by other means which experts are acquainted with—should be made more-useful for the ordinary traveller. Then

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  another important matter is the commons. What has been the whole difficulty in the way in questions affecting commons, with which I have had, I may say a great to do? Why it is that there is no evidence to show where the common really begins or where it ends. In the maps that are to be made in future a little more care might be taken. I do not mean scientifically, but I allude to the necessity of impressing upon the officers that they should show what is the extent of the commons, and that the maps ought to be "exhibited" so that anybody might be able to see at once, and complain of, anything that was wrong in them in the same way as they can complain now of an error in the road or a county boundary. If that were done I say the value of these maps would be enormously increased. Then one word more with respect to the form of these maps. In spite of what the noble Earl below me has said, I still think the form of the maps might be much improved. The 25-in. map is no doubt a good one, but it is absolutely useless except for State purposes. The 6-in. map, again, is too large for ordinary use, and the 1-in. map is a very good one, but it is overcrowded, and it has not sufficiently delineated features; but why should not we have county maps made in the same way as they are now so well made by book-sellers and other people? Why should not the Ordnance Survey, who have ample means, publish county maps on a 4-in. or 6-in. scale to the mile, made in a similar way to the 1-in. map so as to make it useful? I trust the Government will consider this question. The maps, I am sure, would more than double their sale if they were adapted to the ordinary uses of the public; but I have nothing to say against the Ordnance Survey. I believe that the officers are most competent for their work, and that the maps are the most scientific that have ever been made.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATH: I think there is an objection to the present Ordnance Survey maps, or, at any rate, to some of them, which the noble Lord has not alluded to, which is, that they do not give the ditches.
  *LORD THRING: That cannot be done.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATH: At all events, it is not done, and the consequence is that they are not of as much use as they would be otherwise in marking out the boundaries between properties. I do not see how the Ordnance Survey maps are to give the paths and the boundaries of commons, as the noble Lord proposes. If they are to be of any use they should be a recognised authority as to rights of way; and, without a great deal more inquiry than it is possible for officers connected with the Ordnance Survey to give to the subject, it would be impossible to accept their dictum at this moment as to whether any particular footpath is a public right of way or is merely subject to user through the owner of the soil. There are commons over which the public have rights, but there are other commons over which the owner has always preserved his rights, and if these maps are to be any authority on the subject great care and minute inquiry will be required, otherwise a great many persons will be involved in an amount of litigation before any satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at. I certainly think the Ordnance Department must be very careful before they lay down anything in the maps which can be accepted at all as an authority either on questions of boundaries, or commons, or public rights of way.
  *THE EARL OF MORLEY: I should like to add my testimony to what has fallen from the noble Lord behind me (Lord Thring) as to the extreme accuracy of these Ordnance Survey maps. Last year I gained some little knowledge of the matter in a practical way, for without the help of either lawyer or surveyor I registered a not very small property in the Land Registry Office, and in doing so I had to use the 25-in. maps. In the course of carrying out the matter I came across one or two small differences between myself and neighbouring owners of land, which I was able without difficulty to put right by means entirely of the Ordnance Survey maps. I mention this merely to show that the 25-in. map is not merely of use for landowners' purposes, but it has the great public use of making possible the simplification of the transfer of land by means of registration.

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  The noble Lord also referred to the 6-in. map being too large for ordinary purposes, but there I entirely differ from him. The 6-in. map is, I think, a most valuable one, not only for public, but for all ordinary purposes. There is one small criticism which I should like to bring before the noble Lord who answers this question, and that is, that the sheets of the new 6-in. map, which are sold, I think, for 1s. each, are printed on differently tinted paper; and when you come to put them together, they make a very awkward map. That is a very small criticism, but I would venture to call the attention of the Department to it, as I think it would be desirable to have all the maps of a uniform size and colour.
  *LORD NORTON: My Lords, everybody says that the Ordnance Survey maps are very accurate. It may be so, but there are some very deceitful features about their accuracy. One was alluded to by the noble Lord (the Marquess of Bath), namely, their marking the divisions of fields by the hedges. The division between properties is always in the ditch from which the soil has been raised to make the bank on which the hedge stands. In my own part of the country the boundary of property is three feet away from the edge, and in other parts of England four feet. There should be a note made upon the map that this is the case, otherwise, what is taken to be accurate survey might lead to most dangerous mistakes and disputes between owners of property throughout the Kingdom. There is another point, and that is the mode in which they have thought it necessary to mark the position of every tree in the country. Trees do not last for ever, and the marking of every tree chokes up the maps to such an extent as to make them much less useful than they might otherwise be. In my own small mining property in Staffordshire, I do not think a single tree has survived the pestilential atmosphere, and yet upon the Ordnance map it looks as if it were in the middle of a forest. When I inquired, I found they had marked every surviving bush in a hedge. I only want to say one word more with regard to the proposal of the noble Earl. If he proposes that an entirely new survey of the Kingdom
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  should be made from time to time, neither time nor money would suffice; but if he only wants what he calls corrections of the Ordnance Survey in localities where great changes have taken place such as subsidence in mining counties, or in the case of the sea having encroached upon the land or of the land having been recovered from the sea, only a fresh survey of those particular spots may be necessary; but the existing survey should not be altered, because it is a matter of importance as evidence of the state of things at the period at which those maps were made. Nothing more can be possibly required for such practical use as the noble Earl has in contemplation than that where any great changes have taken place, or great towns have sprung up, there should be new maps of such districts which would bear new dates for comparison, the Ordnance Survey maps themselves remaining unaltered as evidence of the state of the country at the time they were prepared.
  *EARL PERCY: I do not understand the noble Lord opposite to suggest that there should be a re-issue of the whole set of maps of the Ordnance Survey; but, at the same time, I trust that every revision that is made will include not only the populous, but the country districts as far as possible, because there are changes going on constantly even in the country districts which it is necessary should be marked, and which, if not noticed, often makes an Ordnance map in its present state comparatively useless. I quite agree with the noble Lord who has just sat down with regard to marking the trees. It appears to be very unnecessary in these Ordnance Survey maps to put in as many trees as are put in. There may be no doubt now and then trees which are landmarks to the country; but, as a rule, trees are constantly disappearing by being blown or cut down, and they cease then, of course, to serve the purpose of landmarks. But, at the same time, there is for the purpose of the Ordnance Survey a very permanent landmark—that is to say, the gates in the hedgerows. This feature is at least as permanent as trees can be. I was rather alarmed at the proposition of Lord Thring asking the Ordnance Survey to provide maps for the use of travellers through the

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  country. No doubt such maps would be very useful, and if your Lordships see your way to assenting to such a proposition I see no objection to it; but, at the same time, it is a very different thing to have a correct map such as is provided by the Ordnance Survey, and a map which can be used by travellers. The noble Lord suggested that the footpaths and highways which were for the public use should be specially marked by exaggeration. No doubt that would be very useful to travellers, but not to landowners. I hope that greater accuracy, where it is required, will be the first object in preparing these maps, and that mere usefulness to travellers will be a secondary consideration.
  *THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Earl CADOGAN): My Lords, everybody must sympathise with the noble Earl opposite (Earl Spencer) in the difficulty he felt in making up his mind to whom he should address his question, for I am sure his doubts must be shared by anyone who heard his statement of the various Departments which may deal with the different branches of the subject. I am sorry to say that my efforts to induce my noble Friend the Lord President to undertake this duty have been entirely futile, and therefore I must ask the noble Earl opposite to accept my performance of the duty. Everyone must, I think, feel the importance which the noble Lord has so well expressed of having adequate maps and surveys of the character to which he has alluded. They have, as has been said in this discussion, been proved to be useful not only for private purposes, but also for purposes of Local Government as well as for another purpose, a very important one, namely, that of facilitating the transfer of land. If those maps are useful for this important purpose, it is quite clear that it is absolutely necessary that the highest possible degree of accuracy should be attained. I regret to have to admit that there has been no revision of the 25-in. scale Ordnance Survey since that scale was adopted in 1863. I do not understand my noble Friend opposite to have suggested that an entirely new survey should be made. Such an operation would involve an enormous expense; I believe it has been estimated
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  at something like £500,000. But what I do understand my noble Friend to mean is that there should be a periodical, perhaps an almost continuous, correction and revision of the maps, which would maintain them in a state of the highest attainable accuracy. That, I think, is perfectly possible. It is a process which is felt to be desirable by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, and he is now in communication with the Treasury upon the subject. We hope that before long an arrangement can be made for carrying out some such correction as has been suggested. With regard to other points which have been alluded to by noble Lords, I can only say that I shall not fail to bring them under the attention of my right hon. Friend, and I am not without hope that before long the wishes which have been expressed by noble Lords will, as far as possible, be carried out.

  SAVINGS BANKS BILL—(No. 142.)
  Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
  RETURNING OFFICERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read la; and to be printed. (No. 191.)
  CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE BILL.—(No. 183.)
  Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
  RUSSIAN DUTCH LOAN BILL.—(No. 177.)
  House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.

  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND CHARGES BILL.—(No. 154.)
  Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past Five o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.