Talk:County surveyor

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[Untitled][edit]

I am an Esquire of the Royal Division of the UK and a retired UK county surveyor that has worked under and with, possibly, hundreds of County Surveyors in the course of my career.

On reading the main page on the subject of County surveyor, I was disturbed at the paucity of facts it contains about the origins and usage of the term County Surveyor and the functions of County Surveyor, as I know them from my specialist education, training and experience spanning over 60 years in a very crucial period in the history of the term, and the functions of, County Surveyor in Great Britain, where it has all but died out due to, of all things, the Great Train Robbery (1963); and perhaps I am the only living person that is aware of this.

Until 1989, all that I knew about the history of the term, and the functions of, County Surveyor, was highly secret due to the Cold War between the USA and the USSR, and, even since 1989, I have been uncertain of how much I am at liberty to say. But, as it looks as if I might be one the last county surveyors from that era to, I feel it is encumbent on me, in memory of all my archetypal County Surveyors, who to this day remain amongst my most beloved guides and mentors from the past, and the ones that I have worked for and with in my career, to set down as much as I feel I am at liberty to make public here in Wikipedia, for posterity.

I have therefore begun adding my knowledge to the article and, as I am 66 years of age and my health is not as good as it used to be, I will insert as much of my knowledge regarding the issues I have mentioned as I can before seeking published sources to verify my statements of fact.

I am however subject to a solemn oath, sworn on the Bible, to the best of my ability and within the law: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; keep the peace; and assert and protect the rights of all subjects under the Crown to the use and enjoyment of all highways within the limits of my authorities and commissions. By virtue of my reading the main page; becoming concerned that much of what is written there is misleading, particularly as Wikipedia is a publication available worldwide on the internet; I now regard my 'authorities and commissions' as global, rather than only those authorities and commissions I acquired in the course of my working career.

The oath I have referred to, I swore on the Bible when I qualified as an Esquire in 1960 and again in 1968 before a tour of duty in the County Divisional Surveyors Office of the County Council of the Royal County of Berkshire at Fernbank Road, Ascot, which served the Palace, Great Park and Forest of Windsor Castle, due to my having suffered severe retrograde amnesia and total loss of personal identity in 1960, following a serious head injury on my way home from the first chartering and commissioning interview so I had lost all memory of it and of my life before it happened. On the day that I completed that tour of duty, I received a personal commission from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to promulgate the knowledge I had learned there to the best of my ability and within the law.

Any other UK County Surveyor reading this page that took the same route to qualifying as I did will know from those statements that my word is my bond.

Please click on my electronic signature below to see my userpage as a registered editor of Wikipedia articles. It is not yet finished but only 'under construction'.

I was diagnosed in 1994 as 'probably having' Asperger's Syndrome, which explained to me much of the earlier years of my life and of the ones since. It also explains my pickiness of other's efforts. But my pickiness of their efforts is small compared to my pickiness of mine.

I have to type my thoughts down fast, due to problems with my short term memory and my long term memory due to my condition, and try to save them fast without crashing my connection to Wikipedia due to my awkwardness.

So what you will see there is very untidy and dischordant.

But I hope you can make sense of it, and feel my personal and professional qualities within it.

I am grateful for you taking the time to have read this.

Namaste And highest regards

81.157.6.222 (talk) 02:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have just noticed that the above text, which was inserted by me, does not display my registered user signature. So I will sign off this comment with the four-tild convention to verify that the text before the anonyomous signature was in fact mine.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 20:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The County Surveyors Society no longer exists. It was wound up before I retired from county surveying on March 21, 2010. Its functions were subsumed into the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport[1][2][3][4]

81.157.6.222 (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- the above post is another post I wrote without first logging in to get my registered signature first - so I'm going verify it was me by this entry

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 06:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Last night I had to erase a pile of text I had typed earlier as when I read it over again I began feeling that someone reading it might take offence.

I did not copy and save it to my journal before erasing it so I do not have a copy of it to read through this morning, but, basically, it was this.

In addition to the statement made by the original author(s) of the page overleaf, the main article entitled 'County surveyor', that there are public officials in the USA to this day that bear the title 'County Surveyor', and to prove his/her point had listed many of them in blue at the bottom of the page; I had found on the main page of the Wikipedia article entitled 'Esquire' that many lawyers in the USA bear the title 'Esquire' and associated abbreviation 'Esq.' and had already made that point in my editing of the page overleaf, the main page of the article entitled 'County surveyor'; I had additionally found yesterday from the Oxford English Dictionary that Justices of the Peace (which I presume includes Magistrate as that term is often shortened to), Judges, and Lawyers (all titles so far that originated in Medieval England and were exported to America by the strategic colonisation government policy of the British Empire) and other local dignitaries, which I presume includes Mayors and Sheriff (two more titles that originated in Medieval England and were exported to America by the strategic colonisation government policy of the British Empire) are awarded the title Squire (which is the colloquially shortened version of Esquire): so I spent a lot of time yesterday asking myself what could possibly have possessed authorities in the USA to award, and / or citizens of the USA to assume, such titles as Esquire, County Surveyor, Mayor, Sheriff, Justice of the Peace, Magistrate, Judge, and Lawyer, all of which were statutory English titles in Medieval England and throughout the time of the strategic colonisation policy of the British Empire: and had arrived at the conclusion that it was a national policy of USA for its local authorities and citizens to bear titles used by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and remainder of the British Empire to give the impression to ill-educated and ignorant people the world over that the bearers of those titles in the USA were / are as highly versatile and qualified as the citizens of the United Kingdom and the British Empire who bear those titles, when, in fact, they are not. For example, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, Barristers are lawfully permitted to bear the honorific Esquire and its abbreviated form Esq., but Solicitors are not; indeed it is the distinction that Barristers are selected, chartered, commissioned, and appointed by the Crown as Officers of the Crown whereas Solicitors are selected, chartered, commissioned and appointed as Solicitors by the Law Society. But Barristers are selected, chartered, commissioned and appointed by as Barristers by the Law Society. The distinction is simple: Officer of the Crown v. not Officer of the Crown; or to put it another way: higher level of competence and versatility v. lower level of competence and versatility. County Surveyors that have been selected, chartered, commissioned, and appointed by the Crown as Officers of the Crown are also so entitled, but County Surveyors that are Surveyors, Town Planners, Architects, Civil Engineers, and /or Accountants that have been selected, chartered, commissioned, and appointed by Chartered Professional Institutions in those respective capacities, but not by the Crown as Officers of the Crown, are not so entitled. In this case the distinction is much greater: vastly higher level of competence and versatility v. vastly lower level of competence and versatility. The first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia main article entitled 'County surveyor' describes the levels of competence and versatility required by the Crown for such officers. In my opinion, the national USA policy was a deceit, and where it resulted and / or results in the nation, local authorities and /or citizens of the USA acquiring any income or other benefit that they would not otherwise have done, then it was a deceit, and if intended to defraud, a criminal offence. Please discuss.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 10:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ http://www.gpsj.co.uk/view-article.asp?articleid=431
  2. ^ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmcomloc/517/517we05.htm
  3. ^ http://www.highwaysmaintenance.com/CSSdata.html: see part that says "Extract from the Winter 2010/11 Winter Newsletter relating to the new "ADE(E)PT" website Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transportation "ADE(E)PT" This is just to let you know that the new ADEPT (formerly the CSS, formerly the County Surveyors Society) is now up and running and I strongly advise a visit to www.adeptnet.org.uk."
  4. ^ http://www.adeptnet.org.uk/

Great... but what's a County Surveyor?[edit]

I think this article has moved beyond encyclopedic to more of a text book on the term. I can't find a simple explanation of what a county surveyor is anywhere in the article! Rodin? "In the beginning..."? Seriously? I think a glance at Wikipedia's manual of style might be in order. :) Wikipelli Talk 11:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a textbook[edit]

Wikipedia is not a:(WP:NOTTEXTBOOK)

"Textbooks and annotated texts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. It is not appropriate to create or edit articles that read as textbooks, with leading questions and systematic problem solutions as examples. These belong on our sister projects, such as Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiversity. Other kinds of examples, specifically those intended toinform rather than to instruct, may be appropriate for inclusion in a Wikipedia article."

The article is, in my opinion, WAY beyond an 'encyclopedic reference'... Wikipelli Talk 13:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Replaced Lede[edit]

I've replaced an older lede to the article. I'm sorry, but someone coming to an encyclopedia to learn the function of a County Surveyor would be completely overwhelmed by the confusing mass of information in this article. I feel that the concise explanation in the lede should stay. I really feel that most of the rest of the article should be deleted. Wikipelli Talk 14:39, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can see the new editor has put a lot of work in here, and I commend him for that. But this article needs to be reverted back to its prior state. The new info must be concise, and conform to the Manual of Style. It must also cite good third-party research on the topic; citing primary documents and dictionaries is not good enough, and a hallmark of original research. The Interior (Talk) 14:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree Wikipelli Talk 15:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion[edit]

Can I ask the editor DadrianT,Esq to copy his/her revisions to this article to their userspace and work on formulating the article there? Then revert the article back to the state before they began editing? My reasoning is twofold: one, by the comments left within the article, there is more work that they need to do to complete it to their liking and, two, because I believe that the edits and additions really need to be reviewed by an experienced editor who can perhaps guide the editor towards creating a good article for Wikipedia. I would be happy to review the progress or perhaps DadrianT. Esq would prefer another editor... it really doesn't matter who reviews it. I believe, however, that the edits recently are way off the mark in terms of style and content. What do you think, Dadriant.? Wikipelli Talk 21:31, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My humble thanks 'Wikipelli' and 'The Interior' for your intervention[edit]

I was beginning to think that I am the only surviving geek on this planet with any interest in ensuring that wikipedia contains an accurate and comprehensive article about people bearing the colloqial job title 'county surveyor' and / or the legal job title 'County Surveyor'.

I will respond to you points in the order in which they appear in your entries, using your header lines as my map.

Great... but what's a County Surveyor?

I have been a 'County Surveyor' within the meaning of chivalric and common law since 1960, and within the meaning of statutory law since 1961; and, believe me, I would have loved to have had a text-book, encyclopaedia or dictionary as an aide memoir that could have told me what that stood for. My private tutors told me, but I had to learn so many technical details of the job that it got covered by loads and loads of other stuff and disappeared under it until I was able to shed the technical stuff when I retired.

The length, width, and weight, of its historical and political bases, were even at that time, pretty overwhelming, for a 15/16 year old aspie, as I was then; because it was only from world comparative religions and constitutional law, history, and geography, books published prior to the Official Secrets Act 1889, following the Local Government Act 1888 under which I was statutorily employed, that I could have found anything about it.

This was because Crown Confidentiality is subject to the Official Secrets Act. When I first started working as a County Surveyor Draftsman. At that time, it was the Acts of 1911, 1920, and 1939, that I was required to obey, which meant revealing absolutely nothing about my work, namely, planning and designing district, borough and county council public infrastructure developments throughout England and Wales to accommodate transfer of the Royal Mint from London to Wales.

I even had to keep secret that I was such a County Surveyor, because it might put the country's defence at risk if I didn't, and couldn't even tell my family that I was so employed, lest their knowledge of even just fact should put their lives at risk, as I was aware of Royal Military as well as Civil Police intelligence, and there were concerns that the secret services of foreign governments and / or the heads of organised crime, might take them as hostages to force me to tell them what I knew. It is therefore little wonder that I was never able to find any text-book, encyclopedia, or dictionary that mentioned the post directly, or even vaguely.

The Official Secrets Act 1989 permitted the revelation any such secret as the previous Acts prohibited, on the passage of 25 years after the appearance of the circumstances of the particular issue that made the matter secret, or of any other evidence of it, as long as it was deemed in law that revealing it placed no security risk on the defence of the nation.

This was because there was considerable 'public' interest in the secret goings-on of the Civil Defence Officers of the nation (i.e., the Esquire County Surveyors) and the Military Defence Officers (i.e., the Equerry County Surveyors) under severe wartime conditions, for example, the involvement of the Prince Regent, later George IV, as Esquire County Surveyor to his father, George III, and the Prince's aide, John Nash, as County Surveyor General, for the whole of Great Britain, in the final two years of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), after the final relapse of George III into debilitating mental illness in 1810.

So, by virtue of the 1989 Act, any matter that imposes a security risk to the defence of the nation is still totally secret, and only matters prior to 1976 that would pose no such security risk may be revealed even now.

The reason for the 1889 Act was that the elected County Councils began openly calling the chivalric, common, and statute law officer they appointed as their County Surveyor by the public title County Surveyor; and some County Councillors, didn't even understande what Crown Confidentiality meant, and were therefore to inform the newspapers of any snippet of 'privileged' information that came to their notice, for the fame, or infamy, that it brought them. Prior to the 1888 Act, the equivalent to those County Surveyors had been employed on relatively short term contracts by the 'the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions assembled' and were know as surveyor to the Justices, or surveyor to the King, as the Justices were the local governance representatives of the King (as their other name, Magistrates=Majesty, indicates) all the way back to the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, in 1066.

So I am not in the least bit surprised that the author of the original Wikipedia article entitled 'County surveyor' never found any significant evidence of their existence in any English literature pertaining to the United Kingdom, let alone primary historical sources. I know of an instance where a County Surveyor added a road to the Statutory Roads Register of the County he was under a permanent contract of employment to, in the 1960's, but the Clerk of the Council did not order a record of why he did so to be included in the County Roads and Bridges Committee Minutes that it had been reported to, because that would have divulged an Official Secret.

In short therefore, the author of the original Wikipedia article simply didn't know what to look for, in terms of the existence and activies of County Surveyors in the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the former British Colonies in the present United States of America. It is very interesting in that regard, that none of the County Surveyor posts and departments that he listed at the end of the article as 'External Links' is one of these former British Colony States.

That is not to say however that I do think that he/she could have gone to a bit more effort to add more facts about the UK County Surveyors than simply that use of the term is dying out, but their County Surveyors Society still exists. A phone call or email to that Society would have pointed him in the direction of Pratt's Law of Highways up to 1894, and Pratt and MacKenzies Law of Highways thereafter, the UK County Surveyors' 'Biblical' 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament', copies of which I always had at my elbow before I retired (see Wikipedia article entitled 'Locomotive Acts', second item in the 'Further Reading List' at the bottom of the page, and its e-link, please note on page 389 of the e-link, the titles the Act that it is from, published in that e-copy of Pratt's Law of highways, uses to describe the Esquire and Equerry County Surveyors of England and Wales, i.e., 'the surveyor or persons liable to the repair of the bridge', 'the surveyor of the road or bridgemaster', 'the surveyor of the road or bridge or bridgemaster'; 'the proprietors, undertakers, directors, conservators, trustees, commissioners, or other person having an interest in or the charge of such navigable river, canal, or railway, or the tolls thereof, or of such bridge or arch'. Not a capital letter in sight, nor even of 'county surveyor'. This is what I mean by the original author not knowing where to look.

As for the quotation from the Bible and the graphic of Rodin's statue The Thinker. I practice Synchronicity, and came across them by coincidence last night when I couldn't sleep due to thinking about my editing, so I inserted them, and they inspired my defining my intention as to what the article had to contain. This kept me editing for most of the rest of the night, despite the Wiki techies tinkering with their software systems in the background. In fact, I didn't manage to remove them last night because my connection was very unstable. I tried to, but my connection crashed; so I went to bed. I would have taken them off today, anyway, as today's connection is back to normal, had you not beaten me to it. But thanks anyway. I'm a sentimental old bugger and might have been tempted to leave them there for my inspiration every time I visited the article to clean out the garbage until it has all been done:)

Not a textbook

I am still a newbie, and haven't read all of Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia says it is not necessary to do so before starting editing, but rather to dive straight it at the deep end and 'be bold' with the editing. So that's what I did, and I don't therefore apologise for doing it. However, I am very verbose. Due to my condition, I write down everything I know on a subject, lest I forget bits in the creative process of composing what I write (and in Wikipedia compositing it also, learning the syntax, etc.) and then start editing it feverishly lest I loose my focus on the subject and drift off to doing something else. I was taught to this by my psych therapist back in 1994, when, as a result of my having a particularly severe nervous breakdown at work, he realised that I'm an aspie; and I used it thereafter at work for the remaining 16 years of my paid, full-time, working career. And whilst it enabled me to produce some excellent work, my working drafts used to drive my superiors nuts. They would ask me, how many spare weeks do you think I've got available to read all this:) But, they were only joking, and would say, its okay ade, you know what your doing, go and finish working on it, and bring it to me to sign it, if you need me to.

So I can assure you that I have no intention of turning the article into text book. It is my intention to keep the length down to the equivalent of 1 to 1½ pages of A4 size paper, by, when I am satisfied that I have covered the topic comprehensively, copying and pasting it into my MicroSoftOfficeProWord system and cutting it down to that size. I have suffered severe retrograde amnesia twice in my life, the first due to a severe brain traume caused by being hit on the head with a bottle, on the way home from my qualifying interview, that wiped out all memory of the previous four years of my life, that being the time I spent studying under my final tutor, and mild anterograde memory for eight years following, that being the period when I did my best technical work, as I was free of having to think about the professional component of it. Colleagues used to plagiarise my planning and design work as it was better than theirs, and that never bothered me, because I never sought any credit for my work. All I cared about was that it got done. I had been given only six years to live by the medical consultant that examined me after the head injury, which is where I got my Mad March Hare syndrome - so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Replaced Lede

The reference to County Surveyors Society is incorrect. That Society doesn't exist any more. On its being wound up, some of its former members joined the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (abbreviate ADEPT) website http://www.adeptnet.org.uk/, as I pointed out on the TalkPage at 20:55 on 27 September 2011.

Apart from that, I agree that the remainder of the article needs massive liposuction. As I have explained above, I intended to do that when I am satisfied that I have written down everything that I know on the subject.

I will also need to get hold of the old, dogeared, copies of Pratt's Law of Highways and Pratt and Mackenzie's Law of Highways, and some others, on Land Law and Town and Country Planning, that I used to keep by my desk; or at least have plenty of time to see and read them again. I think the copy of Pratt's Law was sent to the County Record Office, as its covers had broken off completely, and I had tied them all together with a shoelace. Still, it will be nice to see the County Archivist again. She has charge of the Minutes of the Quarter Sessions of the Justices of the Peace, and a bunch of old Law books about them. I will also need to visit the National Library, where they keep the Parish Tithe Maps and Schedules and associated Law Books. They will also have modern Law books that I can take a look at for useful references, and an 'Other Reading' list for the article. My next port of call would then need to be the National Archives, in London, to take a look as the Domesday Book and some perhaps useful reference books to cite in the article; followed by a visit to the Map Room at Windsor Castle, to see what they have there about the early historic appointments by the King of Esquires and Equerries. So it may be a while before I would get around to doing the liposuction on the present text and graphics in the article.

But I don't think that the subject is so trivial as to warrant little more than a tourism brochure, and I don't think that the Crown and the Esquires and Equerries of the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and Commonwealth of Nations would either.

And finally, regarding the contribution to the discussion by The Interior, if you are really intending to revert the article 'back to its prior state', i.e., before I had even seen the article and inserted my first edit, then can I ask you to (a) inform me that is what you intend; and, (b) put my final edit of it back for sufficient time for me to copy and paste it into MSOfficeProWord, so that I dont lose all my work on it?

I will not undertake any further editing of its current state until I receive a reply from you to the above two questions.

Thanks for your patience.

Namaste

Adrian

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 23:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. After drafting the above I used another internet access connection on my computer to access this page again before sending this reply; and found your WikkipelliTalk post of 21:31 on 5 October 2011.

I am enormously grateful for your sensible suggestion and kind offer. I am glad that you can see that I have been thrashing around, completely out of my depth. There have been times that I wished I had never started editing the article, but I dont know how to revert it back to its original condition. So I have had to keep editing it and editing it in an effort to get it to a reasonably decent finished article in as fast a time that I can, because, it contains so much trash, that I am ashamed that it has my name to it. So I would like to take up your kind offer of guiding and mentoring me. It will be a challenge for me because I have a higher spatial IQ than verbal IQ, so I like to see visually the effect of my editing on the real thing, in order to decide if I am travelling in the right direction, before travelling any further, as for example I can when I compose articles in MSOfficeProWord to print paper copies from it, or draw mindmaps in MindGenius to do presentations direct from them rather than use MSOfficePowerPoint. And I dont think I can do that from my 'userspace', by which I assume you mean my 'User page', entitled 'User:DadrianT,Esq'. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can overcome this handicap. I am in the process of trying to put the County Surveyor article main page and talk page on my watchlist, but I often get confused with the least complicated technical task outside my normal ones due to my aspiness. So, I might not see your reply for maybe a half a day after you have sent it. But I boot mylaptop up every morning, very shortly after I get out of bed, to start writing in my journal, which is my most important aide memoire (as to who I am, where I am, how I got to be here, and what am I supposed to be doing here, due to my memory problems - a part of me is a complete zombie), so I will from now on check the County Surveyor article page and talk page every morning before opening my journal.

Thank you again for you kindness.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 23:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dear DadrianT,Esq, you are the editor working on the article, and I'd like to do what's best for you in terms of getting the article up to speed. I think Wikipelli's suggestion above is a good one, we could move the article contents that you have written to a subpage on your userpage. Then, between Wikipelli, myself, yourself, and anyone else who is interested, we can add content bit by bit as you draft it. I apologize for the burden, but this is a collaborative project. Per your message above, I'm going to go ahead and make a userspace draft for you, move the contents, and revert this back.
Your work will not be lost, only moved temporarily. I'll leave a message on your User Talk page with more details. Please don't be discouraged, with your knowledge we can improve this article. The Interior (Talk) 02:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The statement "However, the County Surveyors Society, founded in 1885, still exists." is now factually incorrect. As a result of the radical changes caused by the Reorganisation of Local Government in Wales in 1996 and in England in 1997, such that the traditional role of "County Surveyor" was changed from meaning a specific person to a management team, the County Surveyors Society name was changed to CSS because the old Society was no longer functional as a debating society for discussing primary and secondary legislation, and operational methods, materials, and machinery, development, and no longer consulted by central government on such issues. The new organisation that fulfils that role is the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (http://www.adeptnet.org.uk/about). So, I am going to edit that bit out of the main page. We don't want Wikipedia gaining a reputation of being factually incorrect if by a little effort we can avoid it. 86.159.3.205 (talk) 09:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have done a little more editing since the last entry, for the sake of 'better writing' DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 03:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latest Changes[edit]

I really like the most recent additions to the article. It's much less wordy and gets to the heart of the material a bit better.

Some suggestions:

  • The first sentence is rather long. Perhaps break it up into 2 or 3.
  • I still maintain that the reader accessing the page will be looking for a 'modern' characterization of the position of county surveyor. This might just be my American-centric view. I'll concede that the term might hold a completely different connotation in England/Europe. In any event, I think I'd move the Modern Practices sections into the lede. Perhaps combining them with what's already there.
  • The section titles are ... nice.. but better suited, I think, to a brochure on the subject rather than an encyclopedia article. This might just be personal preference. :)
  • Referencing is still a bit of a problem. In Wikipedia, information really needs to be referenced. When the line reads: "is the title of a type of government official that originated in England in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest,", I need to be able to see where that information comes from. Since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, I could just as easily state, "is the title of a type of government official that originated in Poland as a result of the worker's revolution in the late 20th century". There must be some attribution given. I suggest looking for reliable sources for the information.

It's making progress! Wikipelli Talk 14:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've said just about all I think needs saying about the UK world view on the official title of 'County Surveyor'. It also partially explains how the title appeared in the USA. I think there's probably more I will find out on this account, as 'county' and 'surveyor' were as much 'european' concepts as 'anglo-norman' ones, linked to the Knights of Christ who governed Europe after the 'fall' of the Roman Empire, so the term 'county surveyor' may have been familiar to the parts of the USA that were colonies of other European nations besides Britain before American Independence.
I take Wikipelli's point about 'modern characterisation', but modern readers may come here looking for an explanation of something they have read in an historical novel, or in historical research of literature of the past one or two centuries, so I think that my attempt to put some meat on the bones of the past 945 years in England is warranted. The Freemasonry connection, particularly Arch masonry, in view of George Washington's degree, and the tradition of the all-seeing eye atop a pyramid on the one dollar bill.
Any critique of the article as it presently stands will be gratefully received. DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have moved my contribution back to my drafting page[edit]

My contribution was attracting critical flags so have moved it back to my drafting page DadrianT,Esq/County Surveyor drafting page

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 07:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overlaid earlier article with this article in response to earlier template request for a more global view - and removed US-gov-stub template from bottom of page[edit]

Being new to Wikipedia, and having Aspergers, OCD and ADD, the original US government-related stub triggered me to attempt to edit the article without first studying Wikipedia policy thoroughly. My efforts consequently attracted justified criticism by experienced editors. However I found the subject so fascinating that I studied Wikipedia The Missing Manual and drafted what I believe to be a lead section that better meets Wikipedia's editing policies. I therefore replaced the original US government-related stub article with my draft, as I considered it was sufficient to both 'stand-alone' and provide useful information for any readers until I finish drafting the remainder of the article. I must add that I did a survey of all the internet hits I could get on the exact phrase 'county surveyor' in each of the regions that the Google Advanced Search system lists. I have recorded the results on my user page if anyone is interested. The conclusion I drew from my survey was that the vast majority of hits were interested in the US scene. A significant minority were interested in the UK scene (including small numbers in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well as the bulk in England). Only one or two hits were interested in the scene anywhere else in the world, in Scandinavia, where I could find only one reference to a county surveyor. There were also a couple of hits that hinted there may public officials of this title in New Zealand. I will therefore in the main body of the article treat those categories of county surveyor equally. But they are so few that I do not consider they merit mentioning in the lead section. I hope this meets with everyone's approval. If not please leave a comment on this talk page as I have included it in my watchlist and will take your views on board.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 17:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have further revised the article to improve its general composition and flow of information[edit]

Being a bit of a perfectionist due to my personal traits, I have worried this article like a terrier worries a rat, before feeling his job has been properly done. Hopefully, I can now put my mind to drafting the remainder of the article now that I have the introductory summary more clearly established.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 03:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have realised that my edits are moving away from a neutral point of view[edit]

I've realised today (well, yesterday, as it's after midnight now as I write this) that my edits are moving away from a neutral point of view. This is because I keep finding additional evidence supporting one particular point of view - my own. So I am going to insert a 'neutrality' template at the top of the page - as a warning - until I can edit out the bias.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 01:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the neutrality template[edit]

I am about to remove the neutrality template as I have found no citation that offers a different explanation to the one I have suggested as being the crown organisation that selected, trained, qualified, chartered and commissioned 'surveyors' for the state. Indeed, my studies of literature concerning the early colonization of the Americas convince me that my suggested explanation is correct.

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maryland article...[edit]

I would like to add an article n the county surveyors of Frederick County, Maryland, USA but this seems so heavily slanted towards the UK with only a minor reference to North America in the external links... I would like to see some of the detail in this edited to make it more accessible to a wider audience... I deleted the Maryland material until I figure out how to fit it in ..Cheers.. Risk Engineer (talk) 20:17, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified[edit]

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External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Text removed[edit]

I came across this article looking to find information about the role of county surveyor, and instead found many paragraphs of almost entirely off-topic rambling text about Freemasonry. It appears that pretty much all of this was added by User:DadrianT,Esq. I've cut it down to a much shorter version, though frankly the article as it was in September 2011[1] was arguably more useful than it is now. Robofish (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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