page_title: Colin Mackenzie
section_title: Surveyor General of India
hierarchical_section_title: Colin Mackenzie / Surveyor General of India
caption_attribution_description: Map of Pondicherry in 1816 made by Colin Mackenzie
context_page_description: Colonel Colin Mackenzie CB was Scottish army officer in the British East India Company who later became the first Surveyor General of India. He was a collector of antiquities and an orientalist. He surveyed southern India, making use of local interpreters and scholars to study religion, oral histories, inscriptions and other evidence initially out of personal interest and later as a surveyor. He was ordered to survey the Mysore region shortly after the British victory over Tipu Sultan in 1799 and produced the first maps of the region along with illustrations of the landscape and notes on archaeological landmarks. His collections consisting of thousands of manuscripts, inscriptions, translations, coins and paintings, which were acquired after his death by the India Office Library and are an important source for the study of Indian history. He was awarded a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 4 June 1815.
context_section_description: In 1757, the East India Company under Lord Clive had appointed James Rennell as Surveyor General for Bengal. Colin Mackenzie was appointed Surveyor General of Madras Presidency in 1810 but these posts were abolished in 1815.
  After his returning to India, in June 1815, he was invested as a Companion of the Bath. He returned to continue surveys of eastern India from the Krishna to Cape Comorin. On 26 May 1815 he was appointed Surveyor General of India with his headquarters at Fort William in Calcutta but he was allowed to stay on in Madras to help reorganize the surveys. He stayed there till May 1817 during which period he worked on planning surveys and examining earlier surveys. He appointed Benjamin Swain Ward (1786-1835) to survey Travancore, Lieutenant Peter Eyre Conner (born 5 August 1789, died 29-April-1821 at Hyderabad) (Sometimes given only as Lt. Connor) for Coorg (then written as Codugu or Koorg), Francis Mountford (1790-1824) to Guntur and James Garling (1784-1820) to the Nizam's territories. By 1816 Garling had used a triangulation system similar to that of Lambton to work out the position of the ruins of Bijapur and was moving northwards. While Garling's work was appreciated by the surveyors of Bombay, he was rebuked by Mackenzie whose orders restricted him to the Nizam's territory. The government in an attempt to hasten his move to Calcutta sent the yacht, HC Phoenix to transport him and his family from Madras on 24 June 1816. The captain, Criddle, was ordered to take him to survey the Pulicat and Armegon Shoals before taking him to Calcutta. Mackenzie however set about to his work and did not board the yacht. The government then wrote that he should use the survey ship Sophia which was to bring Sir John Malcolm to Madras in May 1817. He finally set sail to Calcutta on 17 July 1817 aboard Sophia. When Mackenzie moved from Madras to Calcutta, Lechmiah was retained.
caption: 1816 map of Pondicherry signed by Colin Mackenzie (National Archives of India)
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