DilKhus at 02:19, 5 February 2026

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{{short description|British Army officer and Surveyor General of India}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
[[File:Andrew_Scott_Waugh_1810-1878.jpg|thumb|1852 painting by [[George Duncan Beechey]]]]
[[Major General]] '''Sir Andrew Scott Waugh''' (3 February 1810 – 21 February 1878) was a British [[Officer (armed forces)|army officer]] and [[Surveyor General of India]] who worked in the [[Great Trigonometrical Survey]]. He served under [[George Everest|Sir George Everest]] and succeeded him in 1843. Waugh established a gridiron system of traverses for covering northern India. Waugh is credited with naming the peak of [[Mount Everest]].

==Early life==
Waugh was the first son of General [[Gilbert Waugh]] who served as military auditor-general in Madras. After studying at Edinburgh he joined [[Addiscombe Military Seminary]] in 1827 and was commissioned with the Bengal Engineers on 13 December of the same year. He trained at Chatham where he studied under Sir [[Charles Pasley]] before reaching India in May 1829. He assisted Captain Hutchinson in establishing a foundry at Kashipur and became an adjutant of the Bengal sappers and miners on 13 April 1831. In 1832 he was posted to the Great Trigonometrical Survey under George Everest. Waugh surveyed many parts of central India before moving to the headquarters in Dehra Dun. Everest noted that Waugh and Renny were the best in mathematical skills and in the handling of instruments.<ref name=odnb />

==Surveyor General==
[[File:Andrew Scott Waugh grave, Brompton Cemetery.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Andrew Scott Waugh's grave in [[Brompton Cemetery]], west London.]]
In 1843, Everest retired and recommended that Waugh was the best replacement for the position of Surveyor General.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Charles |first=Pritchard |date=1867-04-12 |title=Sir Andrew Scott Waugh, 7 Petersham Terrace; |url=https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/27/6/213/975912 |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |language=en |volume=27 |issue=6 |doi=10.1093/mnra |doi-broken-date=9 October 2025 |issn=0035-8711 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180605101048/https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/27/6/213/975912 |archive-date=2018-06-05}}</ref> Waugh surveyed the Himalayan region. The survey covered nearly 1690 miles from Sonakoda to [[ Dehradun]]. The great height of this area, however, combined with its unpredictable weather, meant that few useful sightings were obtained before 1847. In an era before the [[Computer|electronic computer]], it then took many months for a team of humans to calculate, analyze and extrapolate the [[trigonometry]] involved. According to accounts of the time,<ref>{{cite book| year=1894 | title = Reminiscences and anecdotes of great men of India: both official and non-official for the last one hundred years | editor=Ram Gopal Sanyal | page=25 | url=https://archive.org/stream/ReminiscencesAnecdotesIndianStatesmen/Reminiscences%20and%20Anecdotes%20of%20Indian%20statesmen#page/n29/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>See report in 'The Illustrated London News', 15 August 1857</ref><ref name=BBC_mwde>{{cite news|title=The man who 'discovered' Everest|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3193576.stm|publisher=BBC News|date=20 October 2003|access-date=9 August 2016|first=Soutik|last=Biswas}}</ref> it was 1852 when the team's leader of the human computers, [[Radhanath Sikdar]], came to Waugh to announce that what had been labeled as "Peak XV" was the highest point in the region and most likely in the world. Sikdar and Waugh checked their calculations again and again in order to make no mistake in them and then sent a message to Royal Geographical Society from their headquarters in Dehradun, where they found that [[Kangchenjunga]] is not the highest peak of the world.<ref name=odnb />

To ensure that there was no error, Waugh took his time and did not publish this result until 1856, when he also proposed that the peak be named Mount Everest in honor of his predecessor. Waugh initially proposed "Mont Everest" but amended it.<ref>{{cite journal|title=[Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal]|url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic2583asia#page/438/mode/2up/|year=1856|journal=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|pages=437–439|issue=5|author=Thuillier, Major|volume=25}}</ref> Everest had always used local names for the features he surveyed, and Waugh had continued the practice. In the case of Peak XV, Waugh argued that with many local names for the mountain, it was impossible for him to identify the name that was most commonly used. [[Brian Houghton Hodgson|Hodgson]] argued that the native name<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic2583asia#page/467/mode/1up/|title=Native name of Mount Everest|author=Hodgson, B.H.|authorlink=Brian Houghton Hodgson|pages=467–470|year=1856|journal=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|volume=25}}</ref> for it was Deodanga.<ref name=waugh1858>{{cite journal|author=Waugh, Andrew Scott| title=Mounts Everest and Deodanga| journal=Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London|volume=2|issue=2| pages=102–115|year= 1858|doi=10.2307/1799335| jstor=1799335}}</ref> Another suggestion was that the peak was what [[Hermann Schlagintweit]] had identified as Gaurisankar.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Walker|first=J. T.|date=1886|title=A Last Note on Mont Everest|jstor=1801364|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography|volume=8|issue=4|pages=257–263|doi=10.2307/1801364|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449418}}</ref> Though Everest himself objected,<ref>Notice appended to Waugh 1857.</ref> the name "Mount Everest" was officially adopted by the [[Royal Geographical Society]] several years later.
[[File:Everest_Deodanga_1858.jpg|thumb|Waugh's map to show Hodgson's incorrect identification of Deodanga]]
The height of Mount Everest was calculated to be exactly {{convert|29000|ft|m|abbr=on|sigfig=5}} high, but was publicly declared to be {{convert|29002|ft|m|abbr=on|sigfig=5}} in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of {{convert|29000|ft|m|sigfig=5}} was nothing more than a rounded estimate.<ref name=tas1982>{{cite journal|title=Letters to the Editor, The problem of numeracy: Mount Everest shrinks|journal=The American Statistician|volume= 36|issue=1 |year=1982|pages= 64–67|jstor=684102|author=Bellhouse, David|doi=10.1080/00031305.1982.10482782}}</ref> Waugh is therefore wittily credited with being "''the first person to put two feet on top of Mount Everest''".<ref>{{cite book|title=The Pendulum Paradigm: Variations on a Theme and the Measure of Heaven and Earth|page=267| author=Beech, Martin|year=2014| publisher=Universal-Publishers}}</ref>

Waugh noticed errors in the triangulation that appeared to be due to the attraction of the plumbline to the Himalayan mountains and approached the clergyman mathematician Archdeacon [[John Henry Pratt]] with the problem. Pratt studied the problem and came up with the idea of [[isostasy]].<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/10848779608579384|title=Modern science in India: A legacy of British imperialism?|journal=The European Legacy|volume=1|pages=132–136|year=1996|last1=Subbarayappa|first1=B. V.}}</ref>
[[File:Andrew_Scott_Waugh_1861.jpg|thumb|Waugh around 1861]]
Plaudits followed soon after Waugh's identification of Mount Everest. In 1857, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him its [[Patron's Medal]] and the following year he was made a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]. Three years later, in 1861, he attained the rank of Major General and was replaced as Surveyor General by [[Henry Edward Landor Thuillier|Henry Thuillier]].<ref name=odnb />

Waugh published a manual of ''Instructions for Topographical Surveying'' in 1861 while his survey results were published in numerous reports.<ref name=odnb>{{Cite ODNB|author=Vetch, R. H. (revised by Elizabeth Baigent)|chapter=Waugh, Sir Andrew Scott (1810-1878)| title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year= 2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/28900 }}</ref>

==Later life==
Waugh died in 1878 and is buried in [[Brompton Cemetery]]<ref name=odnb /> in west London, midway along the eastern wall.

==Personal life==
His first wife, Josephine, daughter of Dr. William Graham of Edinburgh, died 22 February 1866, aged 42. His second wife was Cecilia Eliza Adelaide, daughter of Lieutenant-general Thomas Whitehead died on 9 February 1884.<ref name=odnb />

== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* [[John Keay]], ''The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India was Mapped and Everest was Named'', HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 2000 ({{ISBN|0-00-257062-9}}).
* Andrew Scott Waugh:
** "Papers relating to the Himalaya and Mount Everest", ''Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London'', no.IX pp. 345–351, April–May 1857.
** ''Instructions for Topographical Surveying'', [[Roorkee]]: Thomason College Press, 1861 ([[Library of Congress|LoC]] ctrl# 05033399).

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Andrew Scott Waugh}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waugh, Andrew Scott}}

[[Category:1810 births]]
[[Category:1878 deaths]]
[[Category:British Army major generals]]
[[Category:Surveyors General of India]]
[[Category:Burials at Brompton Cemetery]]
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:Bengal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:History of Mount Everest]]
[[Category:British surveyors]]
[[Category:British fellows of the Royal Society]]

Andrew Scott Waugh - Revision history

DilKhus at 02:19, 5 February 2026