In 1876 Stotherd was appointed commanding royal engineer of the Belfast military district, where he remained for five years. He was promoted to be brevet colonel on 3 Aug. 1877, and regimental colonel on 26 April 1882. In September 1881 he was appointed to the charge of the ordnance survey in Ireland, residing at the Mountjoy Barracks, Phœnix Park, Dublin. After the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Stotherd had extra work thrown upon him as a military justice of the peace for the city of Dublin in charge of troops in aid of the civil power.
On 1 April 1883 Stotherd was appointed director-general of the ordnance survey of the United Kingdom, and went to its headquarters at Southampton. The time was a busy and important one for the survey. Large augmentations of staff had been made under his predecessor, Lieutenant-general A. C. Cooke, and increased work in all branches was in full swing, the result of a recommendation of the parliamentary select committee of 1878, that, in order to facilitate the transfer of land, the original large-scale surveys should be completed in 1890, instead of 1900. There was also the difficult question of the general revision of the national survey, for which, in the case of the large towns and cities—London in particular—the need was most pressing. Stotherd placed before the government a comprehensive scheme with an estimate for many years in advance, and urged strenuously the paramount importance of a systematic organic revision. He pointed out that as the field work of the ‘primary detail survey’ was all but finished, and the ‘trig.’ hands running out of work, the time was opportune for making a commencement, and so avoid a wholesale discharge of useful men taken on at a time of pressure. The result was treasury sanction to a tentative commencement.
In 1884 Stotherd prepared at Southampton special maps for the boundary commission in connection with Mr. Gladstone's Redistribution of Seats Bill. By working day and night nearly half a million of maps were prepared. Special thanks were accorded by the government to Stotherd for his promptitude in meeting their requirements, and he was made a C.B. In the adaptation of photography and electricity to the production of maps, Stotherd introduced practical improvements. On 25 Nov. 1886 he was compelled by the age rule to retire from the army and from his appointment, receiving the honorary rank of major-general. He died suddenly, from heart disease, on 1 May 1895 at Camberley, Surrey, where he resided.
Stotherd married first, on 11 June 1861, at St. George's, Hanover Square, London, Caroline Frances Wood (d. 17 Feb. 1872), by whom he had a large family; and secondly, on 29 Sept. 1875, at Edinburgh, Elizabeth Janet Melville, who survived him. He contributed articles to ‘The Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers,’ vols. xvii. and xviii., and was the author of the first text-book published in England on submarine mining, entitled ‘Notes on Defence by Submarine Mines,’ 8vo, Brompton, Kent; the second edition is dated 1873.
[War Office Records; Royal Engineers Records; Royal Engineers Journal, 1879 and 1895 (obituary notices); Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. cxxi. (obituary notice); White's Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom; Blue Books.]
STOUGHTON, ISRAEL (d. 1645?), colonist, born in England, emigrated to Massachusetts early in 1630, where he and his companions founded the town of Dorchester, of which he was admitted a freeman on 5 Nov. 1633. He was chosen representative (probably, but not certainly) for Dorchester in the assemblies of 1634 and 1635. But in the latter year, when the colony was disturbed by the antinomian disputes, Stoughton wrote a book which, as it would seem, reflected on the constitution of the colony and was displeasing to the general court. The author somewhat strangely petitioned that the book might be ‘forthwith burnt, as being weak and offensive.’ No copy is known to exist. In spite of Stoughton's submission, he was declared incapable of holding office for three years. This sentence, however, was remitted in 1636, and Stoughton was chosen assistant in 1637. In the same year he was intrusted with the command of the Massachusetts force against the Pequot Indians, and discharged it with no great credit to himself either for soldiership or humanity. Stoughton was annually chosen as assistant till 1643, and in 1639 he, together with John Endecott [q. v.], acted as a commissioner on behalf of Massachusetts to settle a boundary dispute with Plymouth. He visited England towards the end of 1643 or the beginning of 1644, returned to America, and crossed again towards the end of 1644. He was then appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the parliamentary army, and soon after died at Lincoln.
William Stoughton (1630?–1701), son of the above, born probably in England about 1630, graduated B.A. at Harvard and was called to the ministry, but soon abandoned it for civil life. He came to England,
