ordnance map of England and Wales, which had been resumed, the operations of the British survey were at a standstill after the death of General Mudge until 1838, when the survey of Scotland was resumed, and Colby removed from Dublin to London. In that year he made his last appearance as an observer in the field on Ben Hutig in Sutherlandshire. Two years later, on the urgent representations of various scientific bodies in England and Scotland of the advantages which had attended the publication of the ordnance maps of Ireland, the government consented to extend these advantages to the six counties in England remaining unsurveyed, viz. Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, and Northumberland, and to the whole of Scotland, the survey of which was ordered to be conducted and the maps engraved on the six-inch scale, while the publication of the one-inch map was continued for the rest of England. The assistants employed on the Irish survey, as they completed their work, were successively transferred to England, part, after a while, being removed to Scotland. The work was proceeding very slowly when, in November 1846, just as the sheets of the last Irish county were preparing for issue, Colby attained the rank of major-general, and in accordance with the rule of the service was retired from the post he had so long held. Thenceforward he devoted himself to the education of his sons, residing for some time at Bonn, on the Rhine. He died at New Brighton, near Birkenhead, in the midst of his tenderly attached home circle, on 9 Oct. 1852, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. A monument was erected to him in St. James's cemetery, Liverpool.
Colby was a knight of Denmark, a distinction conferred in recognition of aid afforded by the ordnance survey to the Danish geodesists under Professor Schumacher; a LL.D. of the university of Aberdeen, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, and of various learned societies of London and Dublin, and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. While living he received no mark of distinction from his own country; but after his death his eminent public services were recognised by the grant of a life pension to his widow. The only entry of authorship under his name in the 'Brit. Mus. Cat. of Printed Books' is a reprint of an address delivered before the Irish Geological Society, the 'Survey of the County of Londonderry' (Dublin, 1837, 4to), which appears under his name in most catalogues, being there assigned, by cross reference, to one of his assistants, Sir E. Larcom.
In person Colby was rather short, with a wiry active frame. The best likeness of him is considered to be a bust in the ordnance map office, Southampton. Notwithstanding the loss of one hand, his dexterity as an instrumental observer was remarkable. His brother officers have testified to his single-mindedness, his kindly and unselfish nature. His administrative qualifications are shown in his apt choice of assistants as well as in the scope and results of their united labours.
[General Colby's family claims to be of Norfolk descent. A pedigree of two or three generations of Colby of South Wales is given in T. F. Colby's Addenda to Colby of Great Torrington, Devonshire, with notices of families of the same name in other counties, a pamphlet privately printed in 1880, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. A memoir of General Colby, by the late Major-general J. E. Portlock, at one time his most trusted subaltern, appears in Papers on Subjects connected with the Royal Engineers, vols. iii. iv. v., and was afterwards published as Memoirs of the Life of General Colby (London, 1869). Obituary notices appeared in Abstracts Roy. Soc. 1853, Annual Report R. Astronom. Soc. 1852–3, Annual Report Institution of Civil Engineers, 1852–3; the two last, which are the best, were subsequently issued as separate reprints. The art. ‘Trigonometrical Surveying’ in Encyc. Brit. 8th ed., and one on the Irish survey in Brit. Almanac and Companion, 1849, may be consulted; also the chapters on the ‘survey companies’ in Captain and Quartermaster Connolly's Hist. Roy. Sappers and Miners; also Accounts and Papers, 1844, xxx. 527; also the Reports on Ordnance expenditure in Sessional Papers of various dates up to 1849; also the various publications of the Ordnance Survey relating to the period in question, and the Records of the Board of Ordnance (Ordnance In-Papers) now in the Public Record Office, London.]
COLCHESTER, Lord. [See Abbot, Charles.]
COLCHU, Saint (d. 792), of the family of Ua Dunechda, was ferleighinn or prelector, that is in modern style head-master, of the famous school of Clonmacnoise. He is termed in the ' Annals ' ' chief scribe and master of the Scots ' (Irish), the office of scribe being so honourable in those days that the title was frequently added to enhance the celebrity of an abbot or bishop ; and from the specimens which have come down to us, such as the 'Book of Kells,' many of them appear to have been artists of no mean skill. He was also known as 'Colchu the wise,' and the 'general opinion was that no one in his age or country was equal to him in learning or superior in sanctity.' The only literary production of his of which we have any notice is that which
