Harry Green, land surveyor who helped to map Africa

Harry Green, who has died at 90, enjoyed a remarkable career in which he literally helped put Africa on the map.
Harry GreenHarry Green
Harry Green

Born in Mirfield, on Armistice Day in 1926, he spent his working life as a surveyor in the former colonies, most notably Nigeria.

As a land surveyor with the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, a unit of the Colonial Service set up to map the colonies, he was chiefly involved in providing the control framework for paper maps, and probably contributed more to the surveying network that underpins African mapping than any other individual.

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Mr Green had served in India before the end of the war and then gone to Leeds University to study geology. After training at the Army School of Survey he was posted to Ghana, and was soon recognised as a natural leader.

He went on to serve as a team leader in Botswana, Cameroun, Tanzania, Kiribisi, Malawi, Zambia, Sudan, Yemen and Mauritius, as well as several tours of Nigeria.

Unusually, he spent his entire career working in the field, mostly living in a tent and relished being cut off from headquarters in London.

In later life, in the village of Thornton-le-Dale, at the foot of the North Riding Forest Park, he used his surveying skills to produce meticulous plans of graves and monument inscriptions in the local churchyards around Thornton-le-Dale. Mr Green is survived by his younger brother, Robert.

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