Michael Topping

Michael Topping (1747–1796) was the Chief Marine Surveyor of Fort St. George in Chennai (then Madras) responsible for founding the oldest modern technical school outside Europe.

Topping came to Madras in 1785 as a marine surveyor aboard the East India Ship Walpole.

On the suggestion of Alexander Dalrymple, he conducted a triangulation survey of the Coromandel Coast from Madras to Masulipatnam in 1788, making us of a sextant.

[1] Topping suggested that this triangulation could be done across India, however this approach was only taken up much later by William Lambton.

Topping was appointed from 1794 to survey water reservoirs and in order to conduct his "tank surveys" he sought to train (in his survey school) youths of mixed, that is, of European-Indian parentage from the Madras orphanage, and deploy them across southern India at a sixth of the allowances needed for military surveyors and without the need for interpreters.