Andrew Adamson Bio
I was a career teacher for nearly 30 years working in the UK. When I finished teaching in the UK I pursued my interest in maps and charts and started searching UK archives for historical material, which quickly developed into a specialisation in original surveys from around the world made by the British throughout the 18th & 19th centuries. In 2009 I founded Heritage Charts, which has now developed to allowed me to share not just the maps, charts, plans, surveys and the men behind them, but also the results of my research.
When not researching I spending time with family and friends on both sides of the Atlantic and playing Real (or Court) tennis.
In 2012 I catalogued the Charleston Library Society's Atlantic Neptune volumes which, as a result, underwent full conservation finishing in 2018. Between 2014 and 2019 I lived and worked in Qatar and China. I regularly travel between the US and the UK searching archives for material relating to the British survey of North America between 1764 and 1783 and the Revolutionary War. The results of my research over the years may be seen here on the Heritage Charts website with larger articles appearing in the Research Locker. My planned research projects include:
-
The forgotten maps of New York;
-
The original British surveys of North America (in the hand 'of the surveyors) made between 1763-1783);
-
The work of Charles Blaskowitz;
-
The British Headquarters Map of New York Island 1781-2 made for Sir Guy Carleton (see Heritage Charts A219a & A219b) and the forgotten edition showing the location of British units stationed in new York and Long Island along with the location of significant families living in New York at the time. focusses on three, hitherto, forgotten plans of the British campaign in and around New York in 1776 made by J.F.W. Des Barres.
As of January 2024 I was appointed Deputy Editor of The Portolan, the prestigious journal of the Washington Map Society with a view to assuming full Editorship in April 2024.