Attempting to set a style for the future: The role of South Africa’s “Central Mapping Office, 1934-36”.
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Liebenberg, E.
1UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA Email: elri@worldonline.co.za
Abstract
Since 1906 South Africa has been acknowledged for its excellent geodetic framework, and in 1920 an official Trigonometrical Survey Office (TSO) was established. Yet, in spite of these achievements, the country, by the 1930s, still lacked a reliable large-scale, or even a medium-scale, topographic map series. The TSO, from its inception, channelled all its resources into the primary and secondary survey of the country. Its aim was to put an end to isolated land surveys which repeatedly led to re-surveys and insecurity of title. Although this action was a prerequisite for mapping, it meant that no concurrent mapping took place. By 1933 survey officials acknowledged that South Africa was one of the best surveyed, but worst mapped countries in the world. In 1934 the then Surveyor-General of the Transvaal, W. Maxwell-Edwards, attempted to improve this situation by establishing a Central Mapping Office (CMO) as part of his establishment “to concentrate on the art of map-making” and to “co-ordinate all mapping work in the country with the eventual object of the preparation of the national map of the Union of South Africa.” By 1936 it was obvious that the CMO was not capable of attaining Maxwell-Edwards’ ideal, and in July of that year it was amalgamated with the TSO. In spite of its brief existence, the CMO played an important role in the history of cartography in South Africa. At a time when the only mapping undertaken in the country was the cadastral compilations of the Surveyors-General’s offices at different scales to a variety of sheet-lines and to somewhat inferior cartographic standards, it set an extraordinary high standard of mapping, an influence which is felt even today, eighty years later. This paper intends to discuss the style and contents of the maps produced by the CMO from 1934-36 and the influence this had on the subsequent work of South Africa’s official mapping agent, the Trigonometrical Survey Office.
Keywords
South Africa; mapping; style