The Irish Bomfords

OBITUARY

GUY BOMFORD MA DSc OBE  

1899 - 1996

 

Extract from Survey Review Vol. 33 No. 262 October 1996 pages 563 and 564, ISSN 00396265, reproduced here with permission. Copyright © Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy 1996.

Brigadier Guy Bomford, a geodesist of the highest international distinction and repute, died peacefully on 10 February, 1996. Before World War II he was closely associated with the important work of the Survey of India but, after the war, his name became synonymous with Geodesy, the text book he wrote and revised continuously from the publication of the first edition in 1952 to that of the fourth in 1980 ‑ fourteen years after he had retired ‑ which received the ultimate accolade of being translated into Russian.

Guy was born on 28 June 1899, the son of Surgeon‑General Sir Gerald Bomford of the Indian Medical Service. Guy's father encouraged his scientific bent from an early age: during sermons in church they would compete to see who could calculate in his head the square root of the sum of the hymn numbers to the greatest number of decimal places. He won a scholarship to Marlborough School, passed out top of his year at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1917. He went to France with 94 Field Company, RE, but he was still at base when war ended. In 1919 he was posted to India where he saw violent action on the NW frontier with Afghanistan, after one particular action being the only officer to return alive. He was mentioned in despatches.

In 1921 Guy joined the Survey of India where he remained until the outbreak of war, apart from an intermission from 1922‑1924 when he read for an engineering degree at the University of Cambridge, graduating with first class honours (with distinction). In partnership with the late Dr. J. de Graaff Hunter, CIE, FRS, his work made the Survey of India second to none in Geodesy, most particularly in that India was the first country of any size to make systematic and closely spaced observations of deviation of the vertical for the compilation of a map of geoid contours. A facet of his work which will be difficult to comprehend today was his development of methods of adjustment of triangulation on a continental scale using (of necessity of course) hand‑operated calculating machines, log tables and not infrequently, a slide rule! In 1935 he helped to found the Indian Academy of Science, becoming a Fellow.

During the second World War, Guy again served with distinction in the survey branch of the Royal Engineers in the Middle and Far East, being a member of PAI (Persia and Iraq) Force in 1941, mapping Burma until the Japanese invasion and then walking back to India, and being responsible for the further mapping for the whole of the Burma campaign. He was Deputy Director of Survey, South West Pacific Command in 1941, Eastern and Southern Commands in India from 1942‑1945, Director of Survey, South East Asia Command in 1946 for which meritorious service he received the OBE.

In 1947 Guy retired from the Army and was appointed Reader in Surveying and Geodesy at the University of Oxford, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. Apart from writing his book he participated fully in both national and international geodetic affairs. He served from 1953‑1961 as Chairman of the Land Surveyors Committee of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a member of Council. He was also Chairman of the Geodesy Sub‑committee of the (Royal Society's) National Committee for Geodesy and Geophysics and a member of the National Committee from 1962‑1968. In addition, he computed all the projections for the new Oxford Atlas, some of which were of his own devising.

These activities were a background to his work in and for the International Association of Geodesy (the oldest international scientific association). It was largely due to his influence and pre‑war work in India that the importance of geoidal survey was recognised and that field work was undertaken in many parts of the world. Two major tasks he completed were the Bomford map of Geoid Contours on the European Datum and the readjustment of the Triangulation of South East Asia. He was successively President of the Special Study Group on the Geoid, President of Section V (Geoid), Vice‑President of the Association and then President from 1963‑1967.

Guy played rugby football in his youth, but later he became a philatelist and a palaeontologist, specialising in ammonites which he collected on his annual holidays in Dorset. His ammonite collection became internationally renowned and one of the new ammonites he found was named Parkinsonia bomfordi. At the age of 92 he was invited by the Director of Military Survey at the Ministry of Defence to open the new Bomford Building at his headquarters, a well deserved and happy ending to an eventful and distinguished career.

Guy is survived by his widow, two sons and a son by a former marriage.

A. Robbins