Welsh explorer and surveyor George Everest worked for two decades on the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, eventually taking charge of the effort. He mapped the subcontinent from Cape Comorin in the south to the northern foothills of the Himalayas, but it is uncertain whether he ever actually saw the world's tallest mountain, which was renamed Mt Everest in his honor in 1865. Prior to the renaming, it was called Chomolungma by Tibetans, Sagamartha by the Nepalese, and Peak XV by the British. Unlike the common pronunciation of the mountain, however, Everest pronounced his own name as two syllables, Eve rest. His niece, Mary Everest, married mathematician George Boole.
[1] Gwernvale, Wales, according to some sources.
Father: William Tristram Everest (attorney, b. 1747, d. 18-May-1825)
Mother: Lucetta Mary Smith Everest (b. circa 1766, m. 2-Aug-1786, d. 17-May-1809)
Sister: Lucetta Mary Everest (b. 1787)
Brother: John Everest (b. 1788, d. 1820)
Brother: Robert Everest (minister, b. 1798, d. 1874)
Brother: Thomas Roupell Everest (minister, b. 7-Dec-1800, d. 15-Jun-1855)
Brother: Charles Everest (b. 1802, d. 1803)
Wife: Emma Wing Everest (b. 12-Jul-1823, m. 17-Nov-1846, d. 21-Dec-1889, four daughters, two sons)
Daughter: Emma Colebrooke Everest (b. 10-Mar-1849, d. 10-Feb-1852)
Daughter: Winifred Crew Everest Wing (b. 13-Sep-1851, d. Apr-1910)
Son: Lancelot Feilding Everest (attorney, b. 28-May-1853, d. 1-Apr-1935)
Daughter: Ethel Gertrude Everest (b. 1855, d. 21-Mar-1916)
Son: Alfred Wing Everest (b. 3-Aug-1856, d. 30-Oct-1928)
Daughter: Beniigna Edith Everest (b. 3-Sep-1859, d. 24-Jan-1860)
High School: Royal Military Academy, Woolrich, England
University: Royal Military College, Great Marlow, England
British East India Company Surveyor (1804-43)
Surveyor-General of India (1830-43)
Knight of the British Empire 1861
Royal Astronomical Society
Royal Geographical Society
Royal Society 1827
Welsh Ancestry
Author of books:
An Account of the Measurement of Two Sections of the Meridional Arc of India (1830)
