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. The Survey School was completed on 17 May 1794, with an initial intake of eight students. In 1858 it became the Civil Engineering School and the College of Engineering in 1861.

Topping was also the first full-time modern professional surveyor of India having surveyed the seas off the Coromandel Coast, India's south-east coast. Topping persuaded astronomer William Petrie to gift his equipment to the government and set up the first modern astronomical observatory in Nungambakkam. The school was established in 1792 and Topping was appointed as the British East India Company's astronomer. Topping died in 1796.

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