Following military service in Burma and India, and a degree course at London School of Economics (supporting himself for a year working in the Map Room in the Royal Geographical Society), Ian Mumford was recruited by the War Office in 1952 as a Map Research Officer in the Directorate of Military Survey Map Library at Tolworth. His forty years’ service culminated in four years as British Liaison Officer (Survey) at the Defense Mapping Agency in Washington D.C. After retirement in 1985 Ian was re-employed as Record Reviewer of Military Survey maps and documents.
Ian was founding Honorary Secretary, and later President and Medalist, of the British Cartographic Society, sitting as their representative on many consultative committees. He was a founder member, and now an Honorary Member, of the Charles Close Society. His written work includes contributions to the later nineteenth century chapters in W A Seymour (ed), A history of the Ordnance Survey, Folkestone: Dawson, 1980, and a Ph.D thesis at Reading in 1999 which reflected his lifelong interest in maps as artefacts.