Alexander Strange
English army officer and scientist
Alexander Strange (27 April 1818 – 9 March 1876) was a British army officer in India and took part there in the Great Trigonometrical Survey. After retirement from the army he settled in Britain; he supervised the construction of scientific instruments used in surveying, and supported scientific research.
Early life
Strange was born in Westminster, London on 27 April 1818, son of Sir Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange and his second wife Louisa, daughter of Sir William Burroughs, 1st Baronet. He was educated at Harrow School, and left aged 16 for India, on receiving a commission in the 7th Madras light cavalry (22 June 1834). He was promoted lieutenant on 10 May 1837.
Survey of India
In India his natural bent for mechanical science and his inventive faculty soon declared themselves. After studying at the Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory at Simla, Strange was appointed in 1847 second assistant to the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. He was employed on the "Karachi longitudinal series", extending from the Sironj base in Central India to Karachi, and crossing the Thar Desert north of the Rann of Kutch. When the work was begun in 1850 Strange acted as first assistant to Captain Renny Tailyour, but after the first season Tailyour withdrew and Strange took chief command.
While at work in the Thar Desert, the absence of materials for building the necessary platforms, besides the need of providing a commissariat for two hundred men, taxed all the leader's resources.
“Alexander Strange” enters the record as english army officer and scientist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alexander, Strange and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18874917. VIAF identifies the subject as 120604591. The Library of Congress control number is no2010070606. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1818, 1876, 1834 and 1837.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alexander Strange” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.