Colonel Sir George Everest (4 July, 1790 – 1 December, 1866) was a Welsh surveyor, geographer and Surveyors General of India from 1830 to 1843.

Sir George was largely responsible for completing the section of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India along the meridian arc from the south of India extending north to Nepal, a distance of approximately 2400 kilometres. The survey was started by William Lambton in 1806 and lasted several decades. Mount Everest was named in his honour and surveyed by his successor, Andrew Waugh.

He was born in the Manor of Gwernvale at Crickhowell in Powys, in 1790.

Pronunciation of "Everest"

Sir George Everest's surname is , even though the mountain named after him — Mount Everest — is .

Career

In 1818, Everest was appointed as assistant to Colonel William Lambton, who had started the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the sub-continent in 1806. On Lambton's death in 1823, he succeeded to the post of superintendent of the survey and in 1830 was appointed Surveyor-General of India.

Everest retired in 1843 and returned to live in the United Kingdom, where he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was knighted in 1861 and in 1862 he was elected Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society. He died at Greenwich in 1866 and is buried in St Andrew's Church, Hove, near Brighton. His niece, Mary Everest, married mathematician George Boole.

Further reading

• John Keay. 2000. The Great Arc. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-257062-9.
• J. R. Smith. 1999. Everest - The Man and the Mountain. Caithness: Whittles Publishing. ISBN 1-870325-72-9.

References