George Adam Beazeley DSO (7 July 1870 – 8 May 1961) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer,

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

and one of the fathers of

aerial photography Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other flight, airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wi ...

in surveying,

military reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

. He was probably the first person to identify

aerial archaeology Aerial archaeology is the study of archaeological sites from the air. It is a method of Archaeology, archaeological investigation that uses aerial photography, remote sensing, and other techniques to identify, record, and interpret archaeological ...

as an independent field. Beazeley was the son of a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

. He was educated at Chigwell Grammar School and Cherbourg School, Malvern, before training at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of Officer (armed forces), commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers o ...

and being commissioned second lieutenant in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

in February 1890. He attended the School of Military Engineering from 1890 to 1892 and the spent two years with the submarine mining unit in

Cork Harbour Cork Harbour () is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee (Ireland), River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. He was promoted

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

in February 1893. In 1894 he was posted to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, where he spent most of the rest of his career. He continued to work in submarine mining until 1897, when he changed his speciality to surveying and joined the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying.captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in December 1900 and

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

in January 1910. He was attached as survey officer to the

Somaliland Field Force The Somaliland campaign, also called the Anglo-Somali War or the Dervish rebellion, was a series of military expeditions that took place between 1900 and 1920 in modern-day Somaliland. The British were assisted in their offensives by the Ethiop ...

in 1903–1904, when he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

. In October 1916 he was posted to

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

, where he was in charge of all field survey work on the

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

front until April 1917, initially assisted by only three British soldiers and about sixteen native porters and orderlies. He also flew many reconnaissance missions and carried out considerable archaeological investigations, both from the air and on the ground. He identified the remains of ancient

Samarra Samarra (, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The modern city of Samarra was founded in 836 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim as a new administrative capital and mi ...

"Military Activities on Rome's Frontier: The Evidence of Aerial Archaeology", by Martin Gojda.
/ref> and discovered the outlines of ancient canals on the Tigris-Euphrates plain. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel in December 1917 and awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a Military awards and decorations, military award of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, awarded for operational gallantry for highly successful ...

(DSO) for his services on 1 January 1918. On 2 May 1918 he was shot down and captured by the Turks, remaining a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

until 16 November, just after the end of the war. In 1919 and from 1921 to 1922 he was attached to the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

. He retired from the Army in July 1925, but in 1929 joined the Sudan Air Survey for a year. He and his wife Annette (whom he had married in 1900) retired to

Saint Aubin, Jersey St. Aubin (Jèrriais: ''Saint Aubîn'') is a town and port in La Vingtaine du Coin, St. Brelade in Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. It is located on the western end of St. Aubin's Bay, on the south coast of the island, opening out i ...

, but from 1938 he worked in

air raid precautions Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the United Kingdom dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s a ...

. He left the Channel Islands for England in 1940, just before the

German occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

, and continued to work in ARP until 1942, when he took up office work in

Totnes Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and ab ...

, also in connection with the war. He returned to Jersey after the liberation in July 1945 and spent his retirement living in the

Grouville Grouville is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. The parish is around east of St Helier. The parish covers a surface area of 4,354 vergées (7.8 km2). The parish includes the south-east portion of the main island of ...

Hall Hotel after Annette died in 1950. On 4 November 1938, his daughter Rozel, her husband, Captain William Swan, also of the Royal Engineers, and their baby daughter were killed in the crash of the airliner '' St Catherine's Bay'' at

Jersey Airport Jersey Airport is an international airport located in the parish of Saint Peter, west northwest of Saint Helier in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. History Foundation and early years Air service to Jersey before 1937 consisted of biplane airl ...

.Obituary of Captain Swan, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 9 November 1938

Footnotes

References

*Biography, ''

Who Was Who ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It has been published annually in the form of a hardback book since 1849, and has been published online since 1999. It has also been published on CD-ROM. It lists, and gives information on, people from around ...

External links

Photographs of Samarra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beazeley, George 1870 births 1961 deaths Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Royal Engineers officers British surveyors British archaeologists Companions of the Distinguished Service Order British World War I prisoners of war World War I prisoners of war held by the Ottoman Empire British Army personnel of World War I Civil Defence Service personnel British military personnel of the Third Somaliland Expedition