Whittaker, Bruce Bownas CBE (sold)
Bruce Bownas Whittaker CBE (June 4, 1915 - 2000) was a British civil servant who worked in the Uganda Protectorate, eventually becoming Director of Uganda's Department of Lands and Surveys. Though his career appears to be largely cloaked in anonymity, he appears to have remained courant in his field, co-authoring a study of photogrammetry in the service of land tenure surveys in the early 60s. His tenure in Uganda would last until Uganda's independence in October 1962, but not before the completion of the first national atlas of Uganda in August of that year.
Ugandan decolonization, independence, and national identity.
This is a 1962 atlas of the then-imminently-independent nation of Uganda. It was compiled, under the direction of Bruce B. Whittaker, by Uganda’s Department of Lands and Surveys. Uganda's independence was scheduled for October 9, 1962. The Department of Lands and Surveys - who had begun gradual work on the Atlas as early as the late fifties - found itself confronted with a deadline, since with independence many of the Department's staff would leave the country. The forward of the Atlas, written in August two months in advance of independence and just as printing began, anticipated that the completion of the atlas would beat the deadline. The production of the resultant atlas thus represented something of a birthday present to the new nation from the bureaucracy of the British Protectorate. It is a remarkable, well-executed, and uniform work. (more details)