Richard Zachariah Mudge was the eldest son of William Mudge the surveyor and map-maker, who was a grandson of Zachariah Mudge, which made Richard his great-grandson.
He was born in Plymouth in 1790, and was educated at Blackheath and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He received a commission as second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1807, and promoted to first lieutenant in the same year.
This was at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, with British troops being sent regularly to the Iberian peninsula to fight with the Spanish against the French, so in 1809, Mudge was sent to Lisbon to fight with the army under Sir Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington. He was present at the famous battle of Talavera, which was a very hard fought battle on both sides, with heavy casualties, but ending with the enemy withdrawing, abandoning their position in front of Talavera. Sad to say, many of the wounded died when the battlefield itself caught fire in the searing heat. Mudge went on to reconnoitre the river Alberche, following its left bank until he reached Escalona, but he then decided to complete this reconnaissance, by crossing to the right bank, where he was taken by surprise by the French. He managed to escape, but lost his attendant with his horse and baggage. He then accompanied the army in the retreat from Talavera, and worked on the construction of lines to Lisbon. He returned to England in a poor state of health.
Back in England, he worked under his father on the Ordnance Survey, and for some years was in charge of the drawing department at the Tower of London. In 1818, he was made responsible for the surveying of the county of Lincoln.
His moment of glory came in 1830. There had been a boundary dispute in North America, between the state of Maine in the US, and the province of New Brunswick in Canada, then of course ruled by the United Kingdom, which had led to the so-called Aroostook War, otherwise known as the Pork and Beans War. I say, ‘so-called’ because it involved clashes between local civilian militias rather than the regular army. In the event, no-one was killed, and only one person injured. Basically, the United States had proposed a boundary which would have prevented a direct route from New Brunswick to Quebec, and would have left the border on mountains running perilously close to Quebec. The King of the Netherlands had proposed a compromise solution, which the Americans found unacceptable, so two surveyors from England, Richard Mudge and George Featherstonehaugh, went out at the behest of the British Government to physically investigate the area. This included a fairly arduous journey by canoe along rivers in the disputed territories, with the help of the native Indians, until they reached Quebec, though Mudge took a detour without Featherstonehaugh to see the Niagara Falls. They gave their report in !840, which was only partially accepted. The issue was finally resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Mudge retired from the Army in 1850, having reached the rank of regimental lieutenant-colonel in 1837. He died in Teignmouth four years later in 1854, aged 64.
Mudge married an Alice Watson, daughter of Jane Watson Hull of Great Baddow and County Down, Ireland, and left two daughters, Jane, who died in 1883 and Sophia Elizabeth.
One feels, however, that at this point there is a falling off of the Mudge magic, and that his career as a surveyor owed as much to his father’s fame as it did to his own talents.
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