Wikipedia

Kognos

Joined 10 September 2010

I am a clinical scientist, based in the UK. My professional interests are patient-reported outcomes and assessment of cognitive function. I am semi-retired, which gives me time to indulge other interests, such as sailing and contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia.

My contributions to WP/WM include history of science, history of navigation, maps, and architecture.

Created Pages edit

I have created the following pages:

 
Henry Charles Otter's 1844 watercolour of the Kyle of Durness
 
Coleshill House, Berkshire, photographed by Charles Latham, demolished in 1958,
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles Latham (Photographer).

For Charles Latham, I have uploaded over a thousand of his photographs to Wikimedia Commons. Some of the houses he photographed have since been demolished, and for these, Latham's images are often the only photographic record, especially for the interiors.

Maps and Charts edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Admiralty Charts.

I have worked with British Admiralty Charts, including scanning and uploading charts that I own; locating and uploading image files in other archives and libraries; and categorizing image files that are already on Wikimedia. There are now over 3,000 images on Wikimedia Commons (out of about 3,500 charts published, although there is some duplication) dating from the early 19th Century to 1973. (Charts published from 1974 onward are subject to Crown Copyright, which expires 50 years after first publication.) They cover most parts of the world, and are categorized by the area covered and in many cases by the surveyor responsible for the chart.

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ordnance Survey (full sheets).

I have uploaded a complete set of the Ordnance Survey Seventh Series maps of Great Britain (well almost, there was one full sheet uploaded before I started). This was the last series mapped at the one-inch scale before the introduction of 1:50,000 sheets. I have also uploaded a complete set of the quarter-inch maps of Great Britain, as well as many of the earlier Popular and New Popular series, some 1:25,000 maps, and some OS maps of Ireland.

Ordnance Survey published a number of archaeological and historical maps from the 1930s to the 1960s. I have scanned and uploaded the majority of these. I have also uploaded a number of geological maps. These are mainly taken from the geological literature - books, articles, and reports that are out-of-copyright.

 
Map showing the approximate route of Shovell's fleet from Cape Spartel to the approach to the English Channel, which ended with the Scilly naval disaster of 1707.
 
Orthographic projection showing approximate position of the subsolar point and part of the circle of equal altitude (the Sumner line) at the time that Sumner made his observations approaching St George's Channel at 10 am GMT 17 December 1837
 
Jordan Pow and Braid Burns South Edinburgh 1854-1855

I have been adding maps and charts into Wikipedia articles where these seem helpful, for example:


I have added detail and/or references to biographical articles for several of the surveyors responsible for charts and sailing directions, for example:

Full-text links edit

Whenever possible, bibliographies should link to material that is freely available, that is well-indexed and not behind a paywall. When editing, I always try and find open full-text sources where these are available, and add links to them.

Sometimes a simple search will suffice, but a lot of old academic material is only available as scans of complete issues of journals, often in either the Internet Archive or Google Books. In these cases I will download the issue, extract the article, and upload it back to Internet Archive with subject tags specific to the article. I can then link to the article from the WP bibliography.

Sometimes I have the book and it is out of copyright, but I can't find it in any internet source. Then I will scan the book and upload to the Internet Archive. Here are some of the books and journals I have scanned and uploaded, then linked to in Wikipedia articles:

 
The Earth's Magnetism. From the Admiralty Navigation Manual (1938)
  • Admiralty (1938). Admiralty Navigation Manual Vol 1. 1938 edition. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. Cited in article Admiralty Charts
  • Pocock, Roy Woodhouse; Whitehouse, T.H. (1948). British Regional Geology: The Welsh Borderland 2nd Edition. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). p. 53. Cited in article about Wenlock Edge
  • Richardson, J.S.; Wood, Marguerite (1948). Edinburgh Castle Official Guide (Second ed.). Edinburgh: His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). Cited in articles about the authors, James Smith Richardson and Marguerite Wood.
  • Richardson, J.S.; Root, Margeret E. (1948). Stirling Castle Official Guide (Second ed.). Edinburgh: His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). Cited in articles about the authors, James Smith Richardson and Margaret E.B. Simpson
 
The Needle, Caithness, from Scotland Northern Highlands
 
Chichester Cathedral Section, from Willis (1861)
 
Chinese printed banknote (Ming Dynasty). From The Invention of Printing in China
 
The Kindrochit Brooch. From Some stray inscriptions

The Gotch book was a very fortunate find. I was able to buy a broken copy of the book at a bargain price, But being broken was great for me, as it made it much easier to scan. It's a splendid, massive volume, folio, and the quality of the photographic reproductions for the time is excellent - Batsford were known for this, and Latham's photographs were well served. Now all I have to do is find Volume 2!

Images edit

 
Imperial shag landing on island in Beagle Channel, Argentina
 
Southwell Minster: Carvings on the chapter house portal

I have uploaded lots of images to Wikimedia Commons: my own photos of buildings, landscapes, artworks, and a few people; and illustrations from old books and journals. Believing that a picture is worth a thousand words, I have added many of these to Wikipedia articles. Here's just a few of the articles:

At Southwell, I have taken photographs of all the carved capitals and most of the sculpture of the chapter house. These were described by Pevsner in a 1945 book, The Leaves of Southwell[1]. All these photos are on Commons, numbered to correspond with the scheme used by Pevsner.

References edit

  1. ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus (1945). The Leaves of Southwell. London: King Penguin.
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