1. George Everest was eventually made an assistant to William Lambton on the Great Trigonometric Survey, and replaced Lambton as superintendent of the survey in 1823.
42 Facts About George Everest
1. 2.
George Everest was largely responsible for surveying the meridian arc from the southernmost point of India north to Nepal, a distance of about 2,400 kilometres, a task that took from 1806 to 1841 to complete.
3.
George Everest was made Surveyor General of India in 1830, retiring in 1843 and returning to England.
4.
George Everest's name was used as a compromise due to the difficulty of choosing between multiple local names for the mountain.
5.
George Everest initially objected to the honour, as he had had nothing to do with its discovery and believed his name was not easily written or pronounced in Hindi.
6.
George Everest was born either at Greenwich or at Gwernvale Manor, his family's estate near Crickhowell, Brecknockshire, Wales.
7.
George Everest was the eldest son and third of six children born to Lucetta Mary and William Tristram George Everest.
8.
George Everest's father was a solicitor and justice of the peace, part of a "Greenwich family of long standing", and was successful enough to acquire a large estate in south Wales.
9.
George Everest was educated at the Royal Military College, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, followed by a year at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, the military engineers' and artillery training college.
10.
George Everest joined the East India Company as a cadet in 1806.
11.
George Everest was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery, and sailed for India the same year.
12.
George Everest was a Freemason, initiated in Neptune Lodge, Penang, under the authority of the United Grand Lodge of England.
13.
George Everest was seconded to Java in 1814, where Lieutenant-Governor Stamford Raffles appointed him to survey the island.
14.
George Everest returned to Bengal in 1816, where he improved British knowledge of the Ganges and the Hooghly.
15.
George Everest later surveyed a semaphore line from Calcutta to Benares, covering approximately 400 miles.
16.
George Everest's work came to the attention of Colonel William Lambton, the leader of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, who appointed him as his chief assistant.
17.
George Everest joined Lambton at Hyderabad in 1818, where he was in the process of surveying a meridian arc northward from Cape Commorin.
18.
George Everest was responsible for much of the fieldwork, but then in 1820 contracted malaria, necessitating a period of recovery spent at the Cape of Good Hope.
19.
George Everest succeeded Lambton as superintendent of the GTS upon Lambton's death in 1823, and over the following years extended his predecessor's efforts on the arc up to Sironj, in present-day Madhya Pradesh.
20.
George Everest was prone to suffer from poor health and the effects of a bout of fever and rheumatism left him half paralysed.
21.
George Everest returned to England in 1825, where he spent the following five years recuperating.
22.
George Everest became acquainted with Indian thought, according to his niece Mary Boole:.
23.
My uncle, George Everest, was sent to India in 1806 at the age of sixteen.
24.
George Everest never interfered with anyone's religious beliefs or customs.
25.
In June 1830, George Everest returned to India to continue his work on the GTS, and was simultaneously appointed Surveyor General of India.
26.
Jervis withdrew from consideration, and George Everest successfully secured the appointment of his protege Waugh as his successor.
27.
George Everest resigned in November 1842 and his commission was formally revoked in December 1843, at which point he returned to England.
28.
In London on 11 November 1846 George Everest married Emma Wing, aged 23, of Hampstead.
29.
In 1847, George Everest published An Account of the Measurement of Two Sections of the Meridional Arc of India, for which he was awarded a medal by the Royal Astronomical Society.
30.
George Everest was later elected to fellowship of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Geographical Society.
31.
George Everest was promoted to colonel in 1854, made a Commander of the Order of the Bath in February 1861, and created a Knight Bachelor in March 1861.
32.
George Everest died at his home in Hyde Park Gardens on 1 December 1866, and was buried in St Andrew's Church, Hove, near Brighton.
33.
George Everest had no direct connection with the mountain which bears his name, which he never saw.
34.
George Everest was responsible for hiring Andrew Scott Waugh, who made the first formal observations of the mountain, and Radhanath Sikdar, who calculated its height.
35.
George Everest himself objected to his name being used, as "the native of India" could not pronounce it and it could not be easily written in Hindi.
36.
George Everest's second was the Thomas Roupell Everest, the father of Mary Everest and a lay homoeopath.
37.
George Everest's third child, Ethel George Everest, was an associate of Emma Cons and friend of Lilian Baylis.
38.
George Everest provided financial support for the founding of Morley College in south London.
39.
George Everest practised as a barrister in chambers in London and was the principal author of The Law of Estoppel.
40.
Lancelot's eldest son, Cyril Feilding George Everest, enlisted in the Canadian Infantry on 17 November 1914 and was killed in action on 9 October 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.
41.
George Everest owned a house in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, for about 11 years.
42.
George Everest purchased it, sight unseen, from General William Sampson Whish.