Captain George Augustus Bennett (6 January 1807 – 30 April 1845) was an English military engineer of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Board of Ordnance. He served in Corfu (1828–1832), on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (1832–1841), as Commanding Royal Engineer in New Zealand (1842–1845) and first president of the Auckland Mechanics' Institute (1842–1845). Whilst serving in Ireland he devised and implemented the system of contours for Ordnance Survey maps. In the Colony of New Zealand he designed the flagstaff blockhouse central to the Battle of Kororāreka (1845) and other military works.
Early life Bennett, born 6 January 1807, was the second of three sons of William Bennett of Portsea, Hampshire, a major in the Corps of Royal Engineers, and Mary Early. William served at Fort Cumberland, Hampshire, and overseas at Nova Scotia commanding the 12th Company, Royal Sappers and Miners, Sicily in 1810 and 1812–1815, and Ireland, but died of consumption at Gosport, Hampshire, on or about 18 June 1821, aged 37 years. Mary married Major Thomas Alston Brandreth, RA, some years later, in 1826. Paternal grandfather, George Augustus Bennett, had served as an officer of the Royal Marine Force; great-grandfather, William Bennett, attained the rank of rear admiral in the Royal Navy. Maternal grandfather, James Early, was an officer of the 1st Royal Garrison Battalion; great-grandfather, Early, a farmer at Datchet, near Windsor, had been, by family legend, greatly in favour with George III on farming matters. Bennett was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland, for some of his early years. His brother, Frederick, was born in Ireland in or about 1816. Carrying on a family line of military service and profession of military engineer, he trained at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from 1823 to 11 July 1827. Breaking from family traditions, his brothers' callings were to the clergy, both taking their degrees at Christ Church, Oxford. William James Early Bennett, went on to make a remarkable contribution to the Oxford Movement.
Career Gentleman Cadet Bennett was commissioned as no. 611, 2nd lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers, Board of Ordnance, at Woolwich, on 13 July 1827. He remained there for six months and, after a short leave, was posted to the Mediterranean.
Corfu In 1828, he was stationed at Corfu, Ionian Islands, where fortifications were being repaired and constructed by a company of Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. As the works at Corfu were too extensive for the garrison there, a smaller fort to command the anchorage had been devised for the island of Vido, which, constructed from 1825, would be finished by 1831–32.
Ireland
Ordnance Survey In 1832 Bennett was assigned to the Ordnance survey of Ireland under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Frederick Colby, RE, and Lieutenant Thomas Aiskew Larcom, RE, and advanced to rank of lieutenant on 10 December. By the end of 1834 he'd worked through producing survey memoirs for many county Antrim, Down and Armagh parishes—Glenavy, Aghaderg, Annaclone, Clonallan, Donacloney, Donaghmore, Dromara, Dromore, Drumballyroney, Drumgath, Garvaghy, Magherally, Magheralin, Newry, Seapatrick, Shankill, Tullylish, Warrenpoint, Ballymore, Drumcree, Kilmore, Montiaghs, Seagoe— and with Lieutenant Henry Tucker, RE, took charge of the operations in County Louth from about 1834. Then, as Captain Robert Kearsley Dawson, RE, moved on to England in connection with the Reform Commission in 1835, Bennett took over his hill drawing role, superintending the hill-sketchers.
Contours
On Sunday, 1 April 1838, Bennett gave 4th Division over to Lieutenant St George Lyster, RE, and took charge of the Hill-Drawing Department, Statistics and Antiquities; a change of scene that he hoped would restore his health after the pressures of divisional work. Colby and Larcom briefed him at Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1–2 April. Larcom was keen to introduce light and shade into drawing hills and was attempting it on the rail road map. Colby revealed his scheme for heights of hills or elevation by a series of contours at 50 ft each having a darker shade near the hilltop, which Larcom thought noble but impractical. A French engraver's example with houses, woods and other features worked into the shade with good effect was also shown, but trees were not distinct and Bennett disliked it. Hill sketching work was expensive and after years of experiments Colby had not then seen any mode of drawing hills on maps that was perfectly satisfactory. Colby reported to the Inspector General of Fortifications, 6 May 1840:
In the Cadastral Map of Ireland the altitudes marked are extremely numerous, and afford great assistance to the sketchers; still this information alone does not enable them to perfect sketches for definite use. Captain Larcom suggested running contour lines instrumentally at certain distances, as affording accurate data to regulate the detorication of hills.
In pursuit of the definite and useful map, Larcom instigated contouring in 1838, with Bennett specifically tasked with perfecting and implementing the new system. In mid-April, Bennett set the department's senior civil assistant, Charles Whybrow Ligar, to making a scale model from card in 50 ft contour heights which, quickly done, worked well. Having taken an office-residence at Armagh in April 1838, and inspected the civilian sketchers' work from Dungannon to Coleraine and the Giant's Causeway, he resolved that for efficacy and economy, the Royal Sappers and Miners must do the contour work. Settling in Armagh in early May he noted: "got all right and comfortable—shall now set to work—head aches as bad nearly as ever with eternal flushings well it will end one way or another—" The headaches and sore eyes continued, nevertheless, he worked through the method of instrumental contours and by the end of May had made a scale skeleton model of "Bendradagh" in 50 ft contour heights, and soon after cast a plaster model of it. He wrote on 29 May:
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