William Roy

Major-General William Roy FRS, AS (1726–1790) was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of Great Britain.

It was Roy's advocacy and leadership that led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791, the year after his death. His technical work in the establishment of a surveying baseline won him the Copley Medal in 1785. His maps and drawings of Roman archaeological sites in Scotland were the first accurate and systematic study of the subject, and have not been improved upon even today. Roy was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Life and works

Principal Sources

William Roy (medium)

William Roy (1911-1977) was the pseudonym of William George Holroyd Plowright, a notorious fraud medium in the history of British spiritualism.

Biography

Roy was born in Cobham, Surrey. He married Mary Castle, a nightclub owner, in London when he was seventeen years old. During the 1930s, his wife died and he re-married. He set up in business as a spiritualist medium. Roy's second wife, Dorothy, committed suicide. Three weeks after her death, Roy married Mary Rose Halligan. Roy had rich clients and lived in expensive style. He separated from his third wife in 1956.

Fraud

Roy used technical devices for his fraudulent mediumship and employed hidden accomplices. He concealed a microphone and recorded the conversations of the sitters before his séances. Roy was exposed as a fraud in 1955.

According to Lewis Spence:

His "direct voice" mediumship was a clever microphone relaying technique. The "spirit" voices were made in an adjoining room by his accomplice who spoke into a microphone. The wires from the microphone ran through the wall and under the carpet of the séance room and attached to a hearing aid on Roy's wrist. The hearing aid had been adapted into a miniature speaker. The "spirit" voices of his accomplish could come from Roy's wrist even when Roy himself was speaking.

William Burton Roy

William Burton "Bill" Roy (born on 4 December 1958 in Versailles, Illinois) is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force and former U.S. Olympian in skeet shooting.

Biography

Bill Roy was born on 4 December 1958 in Versailles, Illinois. He attended the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Although the Academy's admissions director told Roy he "had a snowball's chance in hell" of gaining admission, he not only graduated but was elected as a class president. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). A former bishop, Roy's activity in the church began when he met then-fellow cadet Douglas J. Kirkpatrick, an aeronautics engineer famous for his appearance in a Michael Jordan Nike shoe commercial. Upon graduation in 1981, he married Vickie Norton. They have five children. He received his Masters in English Literature from the University of North Carolina. Today, Roy is the Chief Operating Officer for the El Paso County (Colorado) Republican Party.

William Roy (disambiguation)

William Roy (1726–1790) was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian.

William Roy may also refer to: