Alexander Strange (27 April 1818 – 9 March 1876) was a British army officer in India and took part there in the Great Trigonometrical Survey.
[1][3] 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.
After this work was ended, Strange joined the surveyor-general, Sir Andrew Scott Waugh, at his camp at Attock, and took part in measuring a verificatory base-line.
As soon as he settled in England he persuaded the Indian government to establish a department for the inspection of scientific instruments for use in India, and was appointed to organise it, and to the office of inspector in 1862.
Strange abolished the patterns, encouraged invention, insured competition as to price by employing at least two makers for each class of instrument, and enforced strict supervision; a marked improvement in design and workmanship was soon evident, and the cost of the establishment was shown in his first decennial report to be only about .028 of one per cent.
[1] A lover of science for its own sake, he long preached the duty of government to support scientific research, especially in directions where discovery, though enriching the community, brings no benefit to the inventor.