The Charles Close Society for the study of Ordnance Survey Maps - Kenneth Guy Messenger
Guy Messenger lived at Uppingham in Rutland, teaching biology at Uppingham School until his retirement in 1980. He remained an active botanist until his death, publishing a monograph on the flora of Rutland in 1971 and several contributions to Watsonia, the scientific journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles.
He was an early member of the Charles Close Society, joining
in 1981, and quickly turned the analytical and classification
skills he had acquired as a botanist to his new passion of cartobibliography.
He was the author of the first full length monograph on a twentieth
century map series, the Ordnance Survey one-inch map of England
and Wales Third Edition (Large Sheet Series), which the CCS published
in 1988. Guy was made an Honorary Member of the CCS in 1991. Further
details of his life and work appear in the obituary in Sheetlines
38.
Guy's maps and research papers were left to Cambridge University Library; the important pre-war maps are listed in a catalogue that may be viewed in the Map Department.
His research papers have now been listed as a section of the Charles Close Society Archives
Among these may be found his correspondence (1982-1993) with
Richard Oliver, wherein many themes in the largely unexplored
territory of Ordnance Survey research, much of which would evolve
into the published work of both men, were developed.
Click here to see the procedure for viewing the Charles Close Society Archives.