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Chapter 15

ENGLAND & WALES

When considering the work of English map makers we tend, perhaps, to think too much in terms of county maps, dominated by the names of Saxton and Speed, but we should not underrate the contribution to the sum of geographical knowledge made in other spheres, such as the sea charts of Edward Wright, Robert Dudley and Greenvile Collins, the discoveries of James Cook, the road maps of Ogilby and Cary, the meteorological and magnetic charts compiled by Edmund Halley, to mention only a few among the many whose work is covered in this chapter.

TWELFTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

We have written elsewhere of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century maps of Matthew Paris, chronicler and historian, of St Albans, of the Hereford Cathedral Mappa Mundi by Richard of Haldingham and of the Gough Map in the Bodleian Library. Coming to the sixteenth century the first separately printed map of the British Isles was published by Sebastian Munster in 1540 and the first such map by an Englishman was that of George Lily, a Catholic exile at the Papal Court. This map, first issued in Rome in 1546 (with later editions up to 1589) was probably based on the Gough map, on Munster's map of 1540 and no doubt on the numerous estate maps then available. Few other maps of the time can approach it for clarity and elegance, and the compiler's use of conventional signs and symbols to show forests, hills, county towns, castles and episcopal sees was an innovation subsequently followed very closely by map makers for centuries.

In 1558 Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in the midst of a fast changing world. To a great extent England and Wales had been fortunate to escape the violent upheavals which afflicted so many European countries at the time. Despite the dissolution of the monasteries and the religious persecution and doctrinal ferment of the middle years of the century, the country up to about 1540 and from 1570 onwards enjoyed long periods of comparative stability with consequent prosperity and a widening of intellectual attainments.

The break up and redistribution of monastic lands, which passed by royal favour to a new 'landed gentry', created a need for re-surveying and mapping on almost a countrywide scale and the times, therefore, seemed propitious for mapping the whole country in a uniform manner. In 1563 a nineteen sheet map, copies of which survive only in manuscript form, was completed by Laurence Nowell, and no doubt, the issue of Mercator's large-scale map of the British Isles in 1564 had an important influence on the thought of the period. A few years later a national survey was commissioned privately, although probably at the instigation of Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, but subsequently was completed with royal encouragement. The outcome was Christopher Saxton's Atlas of EngIand and Wales, started about 1570 and published in 1579 - the first printed set of county maps and the first countrywide atlas on such a splendid scale produced anywhere. It was immediately recognized as a work of national and, indeed, international importance and formed the basis on which nearly all county maps of England and Wales were produced until the mid eighteenth century, when Bowen, Kitchin and others carried out large-scale surveys for their new atlases. In later years, in 1583, Saxton published a large-scale map of England and Wales of which only two copies are known, although there were many later issues with considerable alterations including the addition of roads, town plans and other features.

Until the end of the century Saxton's maps faced little competition. In the 1590s John Norden planned a new set of county maps on the lines of Saxton's but including roads, grid references and a wider range of information; in the event his project failed through lack of support and only five maps were published in his lifetime. A Welsh antiquarian, Humphrey Lhuyd, was more successful and, even before Saxton's survey was complete, he had produced fine manuscript maps of England and Wales and of Wales separately which were used by Ortelius in editions of his Atlas from 1573 onwards. In the same period, in 1572, the first map engraved on copper in England was published. This was a map of Palestine by Humphrey Cole, a goldsmith and instrument maker. Town plans, also, were being drawn: of Norwich by William Cunningham in 1559, of London in 1560 by a Flemish artist and of Cambridge by Richard Lyne in 1572.

In the wider sphere, the English explorers, Drake, Chancellor, Frobisher, Hawkins, Raleigh, Davis and others were adding to the detailed knowledge of the geography of the world in spite of the lack of any satisfactory system of navigation. In an effort to solve their problems Edward Wright published in 1599 his treatise Certaine Errors of Navigation which enabled navigators to make fuller use of the charts drawn on Mercator's new projection. Wright's world map, published in the following year, set a pattern for ocean charts which in essence is still used today.

 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

 The seventeenth century opened with a spate of new publications based largely on the original work of Saxton and Norden. Indeed, for much of the century, publishers, not least the Dutch, rather than cartographers, were to dominate the scene and many maps appeared in numerous editions with comparatively minor alterations to the maps themselves. The earliest maps of the new century, attributed to William Smith of the College of Heralds, covered only twelve counties based on Saxton/Norden and were presumably intended to be part of a complete new atlas. They were printed in the Low Countries in 1602-3 and were soon followed by maps for the Latin edition of Camden's Britannia dated 1607. In this series for the first time each county was shown on a separate sheet, being engraved by William Kip and William Hole on a reduced scale measuring about 355 x 255 mm. There is some evidence that the maps by Pieter van den Keere produced for a miniature atlas of the British Isles (subsequently known as 'Miniature Speeds') were first engraved in 1599, but more likely they were issued in the period 1605-10. One authority, however, concludes that they were only issued in proof form until the issue by Blaeu in 1617. In 1610-11 the first edition of John Speed's famous county Atlas was published and immediately replaced Saxton's in popular appeal, an appeal which has remained to the present day. Speed, horn in Cheshire in 1552, the son of a tailor, turned his life-long interest in history and antiquities to good account and soon after the year 1600 began the preparation of a national History and Atlas which was published in 1611 as The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. The History left little mark hut the Atlas which formed the appendix to the work brought him lasting fame!

Although Speed assembled much of his material from the earlier works of Saxton, Norden and others, a considerable part of the up-to-date information, especially relating to the inset town plans depicted on his maps, was obtained first hand; as he says in the preface to the Theatre 'by my owne travels through every province of England and Wales' . The maps undoubtedly owed much of their popularity to the splendid engravings of high quality made in the workshops in Amsterdam of Jodocus Hondius to whom Speed sent his manuscripts, the plates subsequently being returned to London for printing.

The issue of Speed's atlases continued through many editions into the next century but in the period we are considering here there were several other interesting publications. In 1612-13 Michael Drayton, an Elizabethan poet, published a book of poems with the title Poly-Olbion or Chorographical Description of all the Tracts, Rivers, Mountains) Forests and other parts of the Renowned Isle of Great Britain, containing i8 illustrative maps with a second part and 12 extra maps in 1622. A miniature atlas, based on Saxton, by John Bill, entitled The Abridgment of Camden's Britania with the Maps of the Several Shires of England and Wales was published in 1626. The engraver is not known but the latitude and longitude used is based on the island of St Michael's in the Azores following Mercator's custom. Only one edition was printed and the maps are, therefore, exceedingly rare.

In 1645, Volume IV of the famous Blaeu World Atlas covering the counties of England and Wales was published in Amsterdam, although, in fact, Jansson had produced some earlier County maps. The maps of both these publishers have always been esteemed as superb examples of engraving and design, the calligraphy being particularly splendid, but nevertheless they were nearly all based on Saxton and Speed and added little to geographical knowledge. In general appearance Jansson's maps are very similar to those of Blaeu and, indeed, were often copied from them but they tend to be more flamboyant and, some argue, more decorative.

Not until the latter part of the century do we find an English map maker of originality with the capacity to put new ideas into practice. John Ogilby, one of the more colourful figures associated with cartography, started life as a dancing master and finished as King's Cosmographer and Geographic Printer. After publishing a small number of county maps, somewhat on the lines of Norden, incorporating roads and extending the use of explanatory symbols, he issued in 1675 the Britannia, the first practical series of detailed maps of the post roads of England and Wales on a standard scale of 1,760 yards to the mile. These were copied extensively and, after Ogilby's time, roads were incorporated in practically all county maps, although due to the lack of detail, it is often difficult to trace accurately precise routes. Up to the end of the century and beyond, reprints and revisions of Saxton's and Speed's atlases continued to appear and the only other noteworthy county maps were Richard Blome's Britannia (1673), John Overton's Atlas (c. 1670) and Robert Morden's maps for an English translation of Camden's Britannia published in 1695.

In Chapter 6 we have written of another noted cartographer of the day, Captain Greenvile Collins, and of his work in surveying the coasts of Great Britain culminating in the issue in 1693 of the Great Britain's Coasting Pilot. There, too, will be found details of the earlier Dell' Arcano del Mare by Robert Dudley, published in Florence, and of the numerous sea charts of John Seller. Apart from these charts, English cartographers published during the century a number of world atlases, though it must be admitted that they fell short in quantity and quality of those coming from the Dutch publishing houses. Speed was the first Englishman to produce a world atlas with the issue in 1627 of his A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, which was combined with the edition of county maps in that year. Other atlases appeared later in the century by Peter Heylin, John Seller, William Berry, Moses Pitt and Richard Blome, whilst Ogilby found time to issue maps of Africa, America and Asia. Far more important, from the purely scientific point of view, was the work of Edmund Halley, Astronomer Royal, who compiled and issued meteorological and magnetic charts in 1688 and 1701 respectively.

EIGHTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Dutch map trade was finally in decline, the French in the ascendant and the English to a great extent still dominated by Saxton and Speed except, as we have shown, in the spheres of sea charts and road maps. Plagiarism was rife and until 1734 there were no laws of copyright; in 1710 Herman Moll on his map Roads of the South Part of Great Britain could write plaintively that 'this map has been copied four times very confused and scandalously' . New editions of Robert Morden's maps appeared; there were atlases by John Senex, the Bowles family, Emanuel and Thomas Bowen, Thomas Badeslade and the unique bird's-eye perspective views of the counties, The British Monarchy by George Bickham. In 1750-60 Bowen and Kitchin's The Large English Atlas containing maps on a rather larger scale than hitherto was published, the maps being annotated on the face with numerous highly entertaining descriptive notes.

About the time this atlas was issued the idea of preparing maps of the counties on a uniform scale of 1 in. to 1 mile was mooted, maybe inspired by Henry Beighton's splendid map of Warwickshire drawn in 1728. As a result, in 1759 the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce offered an award of £1oo for the best original surveys on this scale and by the end of the century about thirty counties had been re-surveyed, of which a dozen or more were granted the award. These maps, many of which formed, in later years, the basis for the first issues of county maps by the Ordnance Survey Office were not only decorative but a tremendous improvement geographically on earlier local maps. In fact, they were symptomatic of the new approach to cartography engendered by the events of the times - the rise of Britain to naval and commercial supremacy as a world power, the expansion of the East India Company, the discoveries in the Pacific by James Cook, the colonizing of Canada and Australia and other parts of the world, the sea charts by Alexander Dalrymple and J. F. W. des Barres and, not least, the invention of the new Harrison chronometers which at last solved the major problem of accurate navigation at sea. Just as in the early 1600s Amsterdam had supplied the world of its time with maps and charts, so after 1750 London publishers and engravers were called on to provide every kind of map and chart for the vast new territories being opened up overseas. As a consequence, the skills and expertise of the new-style cartographers soon enabled them to cover the world as well as the domestic market. Thomas Jefferys was such a man; he was responsible for a number of the new 1 in. to 1 mile county surveys and he issued an edition of Saxton's much battered zoo-year-old plates of the county maps, but he is better known for many fine maps of North America and the West Indies. After his death in 1771 his work was continued on the same lines by William Faden, trading as Faden and Jefferys. Other publishers such as Sayer and Bennett and their successors Laurie and Whittle published a prodigious range of maps, charts and atlases in the second half of the century. A major influence at this time was John Cary who, apart from organizing the first re-survey of post roads since Ogilby and subsequently printing the noted Travellers' Companion, was a prolific publisher of atlases and maps of every kind of all parts of the world. After starting work with Cary, and taking part in the new road survey, Aaron Arrowsmith set up in his own business and went on to issue splendid large-scale maps of many parts of the world. Both Cary's and Arrowsmith's plates were used by other publishers until far into the next century and, in turn, their work was taken up and developed by James Wyld (Elder and Younger) and Tallis and Co.

We have written in another chapter of the formation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791 and of the gradual decline during the first half of the nineteenth century in private map making, at least in so far as county maps were concerned, but a number of publishers fought a long rearguard action against the Board of Ordnance. The best known maps were by Henry Teesdale (1829-30), Christopher and John Greenwood, surveyors, who issued a very decorative atlas in 1834, Thomas Moule, a writer on heraldry and antiques (1830-36) and John Walker (1837) but by about the middle of the century few small-scale publishers survived and their business passed into the hands of large commercial concerns such as Bartholomews of Edinburgh and Philips of London who continue to this day.

Biographies

GEORGE LILY fl. 1528-59

George Lily, a Catholic exile living in Italy in the service of Cardinal Pole, is generally acknowledged to have been the author of the first map of the British Isles printed from a copperplate engraving. It was first issued in 1546 in Rome with an edition in London in 1555 when Lily, no doubt, returned to England after the accession of Queen Mary. In the following years, up to 1589, various derivatives appeared in Rome and Venice but all are extremely rare, some being known by only one copy.

• 1546 Britanniae Insulae: Rome 1549 Re-issued: Antwerp (woodcut) 1555 do:London 1556 do: Venice (woodcut) 1558 do:Rome 1562 do: Venice 1563 do: Venice 1589 do: Rome

HUMPHREY COLE c. 1530-91

Goldsmith and instrument maker employed in the Royal Mint. Humphrey Cole is credited with producing the first map engraved in England, published in Archbishop Parker's Bishop's Bible, a notable edition of the day.

• 1572 Map of Palestine

HUMPHREY LHUYD 1527-68

Humphrey Lhuyd graduated at Oxford and, after studying medicine, became private physician to Lord Arundel, at that time a patron of learning and the arts. This position gave Lhuyd access to geographical publications of the period and, apart from publishing works on a wide range of other subjects, he undertook the compilation of up-to-date maps of Wales and the British Isles. Eventually his name was brought to the attention of Ortelius in Antwerp, who used information which Lhuyd passed to him in early editions of the Theatrum. Lhuyd unfortunately died before completing his major work but his notes and maps were sent to Ortelius who included the maps in the 1573 edition of his Atlas and in subsequent editions 

• 1573-1612 Cambriae Typus: the first printed map of Wales Included in editions of the Ortelius Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 1606-33 Revised, slightly smaller, version in Mercator/Hondius atlases engraved by Pieter van den Keere c. 1636-41 Re-engraved version in Mercator/Hondius/Jansson atlases 1647 Re-issued in Jansson's Atlas Major and later editions
• 1573-1606 England and Wales Included in editions of the Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum until 1 6o6

Plate: HUMPHREY LHUYO Cambriae Typas Wales Antwerp 1587. The first printed map of Wales was published by Ortelius in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in 1573; there were many variants in the later editions.

CHRISTOPHER SAXTON c. 1543-c. 1610

Saxton, a Yorkshireman, was probably born in Dewsbury although he grew up in the nearby village of Dunningley to which he often makes reference. Certainly the Saxton family had a strong connection with Dewsbury, whose vicar, John Rudd, was an enthusiastic and skilled cartographer. At one stage Rudd evidently planned to carry out a countrywide survey as a preliminary to the production of a map of England and records show that Saxton, as a young man, travelled with him as an assistant. Saxton is thought to have studied surveying at Cambridge but, whether that was so or not, he was fortunate enough to come into contact with a Thomas Seckford, a wealthy and influential lawyer and Court official who was himself in the employ of Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer.

Working under Seckford's patronage, Saxton began a survey of England and Wales sometime after 1570 and the first maps are dated 15 74. In the early stages, after running into financial difficulties, he was granted by Queen Elizabeth a ten-year licence to make and market maps. The Privy Council order granting him this privilege instructed all Mayors and Justices of the Peace to 'See him conducted into any towre castle higher place or hill to view the country and that he mav be accompanied with one or two honest men such as do best know the countrey'. Little is known of Saxton's methods of survey but much of the work must have been based on earlier manuscript estate maps and probably on larger maps, such as the Gough map, long since lost, and of course on the results of John Rudd's surveys, the extent of which cannot be judged as none of his work has survived. Boundaries of 'hundreds' were not outlined, nor was there any indication of roads, although river bridges were shown. On completion of each county survey the maps were printed and sold separately (at fourpence each!), the complete atlas which eventually appeared in 1579 being the first printed set of county maps and one of the first national atlases produced anywhere. It was soon recognized as a work of major importance and formed, for the next two centuries, the basis on which practically all county maps of England and Wales were produced until the completion of the individual county surveys in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Having completed the County Atlas in 1579 it must have been only a short step to the publication in 1583 of the 20-sheet wall map of England and Wales of which only two copies are known, although there were later issues - details are given below. Thereafter, Saxton seems to have devoted himself to estate mapping, of which many manuscript records, but no printed maps, survive.

• 1579 An Atlas of England & Wales 1645 Re-issued by William Web Date altered to 1642 but issued in 1645.Royal Arms of Queen Elizabeth replaced by those of Charles 1 and a number of other changes including alterations of map titles from Latin to English. c. 1689 Re-issued by Philip Lea as All the Shires of England and Wales c. 1693 Re-issued by Philip Lea as The Shires of England and Wales c. 1693 Re-issued by Philip Lea as Atlas Anglois The maps in the 1689-93 editions were much amended by the addition of town plans, roads, boundaries of hundreds and other lesser details. All the county titles shown in English. c. 1730 Re-issued by George Willdey Printed from the plates as amended by Philip Lea but bearing Willdey's imprint c. 1749 Re-issued by Thomas Jefferys George Willdey's imprint removed 1770 Re-issued by Dicey and Co.
• 1583 Britannia: Insularem in Oceano Maxima England and Wales on 20 sheets 1687 Re-issued by Philip Lea New title and roads added c. 1760 Re-issued by T. and J. Bowles c. 1763 Re-issued by Robert Sayer
• 1644-45 The Kingdome of England and Principality of Wales exactly described A reduced version on six sheets of the 1583 map, known as the Quartermaster's Map, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar, published by Thomas Jenner 1671, i688, i752, 1799 Re-issued

ROBERT ADAMS fl. 1588-90

An architect and surveyor who, apart from drawing a number of town plans, prepared famous charts showing the engagements day by day between the Spanish Armada and the English fleets. Subsequently the charts were used as the basis for the design of tapestries made for the House of Lords, but these, unhappily, were destroyed by fire in 1834. The charts are now best known from a 1739 publication by John Pine.

• 1588 Expeditionis Hispanorium in Angliam vera descriptio
• 1739 Charts re-engraved and published by John Pine (1690-1756) as The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords representing the several Engagements between the English and Spanish Fleets in the ever memorable year 1588

JOHN NORDEN 1548-1626

About the year 1590 Norden set out to prepare maps as part of a series of guidebooks for each county. His intention was to include roads, town plans, boundaries of hundreds, a gazetteer and grid references, all of which were lacking on Saxton's maps. In the event he was unfortunate in not getting adequate backing to cover so large a project and only two volumes of his work were published in his lifetime. Undeterred, he went on to draw a number of larger maps but again only three of these were printed. Even though so few of his maps reached publication, his techniques and methods of presentation made a lasting impression and later cartographers and publishers chose his work in preference to others whenever possible. Apart from maps Norden published a work entitled England: an Intended Guyde for English Travailers in which were included triangular tables showing distances between towns in each county. These were much copied and were used on the maps in A Direction for the English Traviller published by Matthew Simmons (1635).

• 1593-98 Speculum Britanniae Maps of Middlesex and Hertfordshire 1723 Hertfordshire re-issued by John Senex 1840 Map of Essex
• c. 1594-95 Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire: larger maps c. 1650-60 Hampshire re-issued by Peter Stent (re-engraved) c. 1665 Hampshire re-issued by John Overton in his Atlas (re-engraved)
• 1625 An intended Guyde for English Travailers
• c. 1728 Cornwall Descriptive text with maps of the county and its 9 hundreds

PHILIP SYMONSON ft. 1592-98

• 1596 Map of Kent c. 1650 Re-issued by Peter Stent c. 1665 Re-issued by John Overton

EDWARD WRIGHT c. 1558-1615

After studying mathematics at Cambridge Edward Wright took part in a voyage to the Azores during which problems of navigation arising from the use of the old plane charts led him to make a study of Mercator's new method of map projection. As a result, he wrote a treatise Certaine Errors of Navigation which provided mathematical tables enabling comparatively unskilled navigators to make full use of Mercator's ideas. Wright was dubious of the efficacy of his system but on finding that Hondius and others were claiming his formulae as their own he published his book in 1599 and followed it almost immediately with a world chart. In effect, charts now in general use are drawn on the projection laid down by Wright.

• 1599-1600 True Hydrographical descriphon of the Worid: A Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection (with Emerie Molineux, published in Hakluyt's Voyages) 1610 Re-issued 1657 Revised and re-issued by Joseph Moxon in a new edition of Certaine Errors of Navigation

GABRIEL TATTON fl. c. 1600-21

Produced important maps of America which were magnificently engraved by Benjamin Wright, one of the earliest English engravers, who later worked in Italy on Giovanni Magni's Atlas of Italy. Apart from his printed maps, Tatton also compiled a number of manuscript charts in portulan form of the Mediterranean (c.1600), the East Indies and the North Atlantic (c. 1602).

• c. 1600 Mans Pacifici (Pacific Ocean and western coasts of America)
• c. 1600-16 Noua et rece Terraum et Regnorum Californiae . . (California and Central America)

WILLIAM SMITH c. 1550-1618

Following the publication of Saxton's maps in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, other cartographers planned atlases on the same lines. Among these was William Smith, an antiquarian and Rouge Dragon at the College of Heralds, to whom the 12 maps noted below are now firmly attributed. Until comparatively recently their authorship was in some doubt and they were known as the 'Anonymous Maps'. The series, probably engraved in Amsterdam, was clearly intended to be an improvement on Saxton and Norden but presumably was not thought good enough to compete with Speed's maps then being prepared.

• 1602-03 Chester, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicester, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, Worcester c. 1652-60 Re-issued by Peter Stent c.1670, 1675, i685, 1690,1700, 1740, 1755 Re-issued by John and Henry Overton

PIETER VAN DEN KEERE 1571-c. 1646

See Chapter 13.

WILLIAM CAMDEN 1551-1623

Camden, historian and antiquarian, first published his Britannia, a description and history of Britain, in 1 86. Written in Latin, the book contained only a general map of the country but it had a wide circulation and eventually in 1607 an edition (the sixth) was published with a series of county maps with Latin text on the reverse. Further editions in English were published in i6io and 1637 but without text. The maps, mostly engraved by Wm Kip and Wm Hole, were based mainly on those of Saxton, but six were copied from Norden. The map of Pembroke is by George Owen and the general maps of England/Wales, Scotland and Ireland were probably taken from Mercator. Although not as decorative as Saxton's maps they are nevertheless very attractive with pleasing titles and ornament, but it should be noted that they are much smaller than Saxton's original maps.

Quite apart from containing these well-known maps, Camden's Britannia had a wide influence in its day on the work of other cartographers, not least in Holland. Miniature abridged versions were issued by W. J. Blaeu in 1617 and Joan Blaeu in 1639. Joan Blaeu also used the Latin text on the maps in his Atlas of Scotland issued in 1654. Later still, fresh translations appeared with new maps as far ahead as 1806.

• 1607 Britannia 57 maps: Latin text: average size 280 x 370 mm 1610 Re-issued: no text 1637 Re-issued: no text Many of the maps in this edition have a plate number in the lower left-hand corner but there are several exception
• 1617 Britannia: abridged version: Amsterdam (W. J. Blaeu) 46 miniature maps engraved by Pieter van den Keere: Latin text 1639 Re-issued in Amsterdam (Joan Blaeu) 22 maps from Petrus Bertius' Tabularum geographicarum contractarum: no text
• 1626 The Abridgement of Camden's Britania 52 miniature maps by John Bill
• 1695-1772 Britannia Editions with maps by Robert Morden
• 1789-1806 Britannia Editions with maps by John Cary

Plate: WILLIAM CAMDEN Hertfordiae comitatus London (1607) 1610. Map of Hertfordshire, engraved by William Kip, published in Camden's Britannia. This map was one of the half dozen based on the work of John Norden; most of the remainder were taken from Saxton's atlas of 1579.

JOHN SPEED 1552-1629

To all those interested in cartography the name of John Speed is synonymous with early county maps of Great Britain. The reasons why this should be so are not far to seek - his predecessors, Saxton, Norden and one or two lesser figures had laid the groundwork for the first mapping of England and Wales in the expansive days of Queen Elizabeth but by the end of the sixteenth century the rate of development was accelerating, increasing overseas trade was linking ports with inland towns, travel was becoming more commonplace and in consequence a need arose to replace the then outdated maps prepared thirty or forty years before. Speed's maps, with their detailed town plans, boundaries of 'hundreds' and descriptive texts filled the needs of the time and quickly replaced the Saxton atlases generally in use until then. Not only were they more up to date but undoubtedly the beauty of the engraving, the fine lettering and the elaborate ornamentation appealed to the original buyers as much as they do to us today. The popularity of the new maps was immediate and fresh editions appeared throughout the i 6oos and, indeed, until about 1770 when the first moves towards a general 'Ordnance Survey' were being made.

John Speed was born at Farndon in Cheshire in 1552 and followed his father's trade as a tailor until about the age of fifty. He lived in London (probably in Moor-fields) and his wife Susanna bore him twelve sons and six daughters! His passion in life, however was not tailoring; from his early years he was a keen amateur historian and map maker, producing maps for the Queen and the Merchant Tailors Company, of which he was a Freeman. He joined the Society of Antiquaries and his interests came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently made Speed an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to his research. As a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted him the use of a room in the Custom House.

Although Speed assembled much of his material from the earlier works of Saxton, Norden and others, a considerable part of the up-to-date information especially relating to the inset town plans depicted in his maps was first-hand. He must have wasted little time in his preparatory work for the first individual maps engraved for the Atlas were printed in i6o~-o6 and were on sale between then and i6io-i I, when the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine and the History which it accompanied, appeared in complete form. This seems all the more remarkable when it is remembered that all Speed's draft material was taken to Amsterdam, there to be engraved by Jodocus Hondius, the plates subsequently being returned to London for printing.

In 1627, just before he died, Speed published A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World which, combined with the 1627 edition of the Theatre, became the first World Atlas produced by an Englishman.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 1580-1631

A member and subsequently leader of the first successful party of English settlers in New England, Capt. Smith prepared accurate and very decorative maps of Virginia and New England which became the prototypes for numerous maps of the Colonies by Hondius, Jansson, Blaeu and others for more than half a century.

• 1612 Virginia Numerous re-issues in Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia and in Purchas his Pilgrimes by Samuel Purchas (1624-26)
• 1616 New England Issued in Smith's A Description of New England and later in his Generall Historie

Editions of John Speed's Atlases

Published by	Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine	A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World	Miniature* 'Speed Atlas' (Peter Van Den Keere)	Miniature 'Prospect'
J. Sudbury and G. Humble	1611 (1st edition), 1614, 1616 Latin
George Humble	1623, 1627, 1631-32	1627 (1st edition), 1631-32	1627 (1st edition), 1631-32
William Humble	1646, 1650-51-52-53-54	1646, 1650-52-53-54	1646	1646 (1st edition)
Roger Rea	1662-65	1662-65	1662-65-66-68	1662-65-68
Bassett & Chiswell	1676	1676	1676	1676
Christopher Browne	c. 1690-95
John & Henry Overton	c. 1710-43
C. Dicey & Co.	c. 1770

 Notes

1. As the maps were dated 'i6io' for many years after the first edition, the publisher's imprint and the different settings of the text on the reverse are a useful guide to the date of issue; at least the imprint narrows the field. But once an atlas has been split it is often very difficult indeed to date a single map with any certaintv and in cases where accuracy is important we suggest reference to a specialist work containing map collations.

2. Normally, the earlier the edition, the more brilliant the impression, although a good impression mav still have been obtained from an old retouched plate.

3. Minor alterations and additions to place names were made from time to time.

4. The text in English, except for the i6i6 edition, was frequently re-set with different decorative 'woodcut' initials. (see Skelton, R. A., County Atlases of the British Isles !J79-1703)

5 Maps from the 1676 edition may be found without text and there is no text on issues after that date.

6. Roads were added to the 1743 edition.

* The purist may object to showing van den Keere's 'Miniature Speed' maps in this chart but the authors feel that their inclusion here sets them in context for those looking for all editions of Speed. A detailed history of these maps is given in Chapter 13 under Pieter van den Keere.

+ As late as the 1662 editions maps still bore the imprint of John Sudbury and George Humble.

++ Included new maps of Canaan, East Indies, Russia, Carolina, New England, Virginia, Jamaica/Barbados.

+ Apart from 4 editions of the Atlas published between the years c. 1710 and 1743 (all extremely rare) Henry Overton also issued Speed's maps in other composite atlases.

Plate: JOHN SPEED The Countie Westmorland London 1611 (1676) - First published in Speed's Theatre of ihe Empire of Grea iBritaine. This copy is from the 1676 edition by Bassett and Chiswell.

MICHAEL DRAYTON I563-1631

In 1612-13 Drayton, an Elizabethan poet and friend of Shakespeare, published his life's work, a book of songs called Poly-Olbion or Chorographical Description of all the Tracts, Rivers, Mountains, Forests and other parts of the Renowned Isle of Great Britain containing 18 illustrative maps; a second part bringing the number up to 30 followed in 1622. These regional maps, believed to be engraved by William Hole, are allegorical in nature and few geographical features are precisely shown. The whole emphasis is on the rivers of Britain from which nymphs and deities spring; in the countryside shepherds and huntsmen disport themselves. Here and there a few towns and cities are included symbolized by figures crowned with castles and spires. Although they are quite the most curious maps of the counties ever issued and have little geographical value they are very decorative and charmingly illustrate the romantic side of the Elizabethan age.

• 1612 Poly-Olbion or Chorographical Description of all the Tracts, Rivers) Mountains, Forests and other parts of the Renowned Isle of Great Britain: 18 maps (4to) 1613 Re-issued 1622 Enlarged edition with 12 extra maps

 

SAMUEL PURCHAS c. 1575-1626

Samuel Purchas wrote very popular accounts, accompanied by maps, of the travels and voyages of the early navigators and explorers based largely on the writings of his predecessors, Gian. Ramusio and Richard Hakluyt. His Purchas his Pilgrimes contained a Treatise of the North West passage to the South Sea through the Continent of Virginia by Henry Briggs (fl. 1625) a noted. scholar of the time. This was illustrated by a map, The North part of America, dated 1625, engraved by R. Elstracke which was famous as one of the first maps to show California as an island.

• 1613-26 Purchas his Pilgrimage or relations of the World and the religions observed Described as a sort of religious geography'
• 1624-26 Purchas his Pilgrimes Included maps printed by William Stanshy from the Mercator/Hondius Atlas Minor as well as the Briggs map (above) and Capt. Smith's map of Virginia

Plate: MICHAEL DRAYTON Yorkshire. This was one of the additional maps included in the 2nd edition of Drayton's Poly-Olbion published in 1622.

PETER HEYLIN 1600-62

Heylin was a lecturer in geography who later became a churchman and chaplain to the King. His Cosmographie was a popular work issued in several editions.

• 1621 Geography
• 1652 Cosmographie Included maps of the four Continents bearing the names of Philip Chetwind, Robert Vaughan and H. Seile 1657-77 Six re-issues

JOHN BILL fl. 1591-1630

John Bill was a publisher and bookseller who worked in London from around 1591 until his death in 1630. He was apprenticed to John Norton who was three times Master of the Stationers Company. Born in Shropshire, Bill was commissioned by Sir Thomas Bodley (the founder of the Bodleian Library, Oxford) to travel abroad and purchase books. A frequent visitor to the Frankfurt Book Fair, he became a shareholder in the King's Printing House in about 1617, being succeeded by his son, also John Bill, at the time of his death on 5 May 1630.

The only two publications containing maps with which he seems to have been associated after establishing himself as a publisher in 1604, were the English text version of the Ortelius Atlas in 16066 (with John Norton) and The Abridgement of Camden's Britania in 1626. The maps in the latter book, based on the surveys of Christopher Saxton, are the first English and Welsh County maps to show latitude and longitude based on a prime meridian running through the island of St Michael's in the Azores following Mercator's custom. Although similar in size to the Pieter van den Keere County maps the engraver is not known; their scarcity is accounted for by the fact that the book was never re-published after its first appearance in 1626.

• 1626 The Abridgement of Camden's Britania with the Maps of the severall Shires of England and Wales: 52 maps (8vo)

MATTHEW SIMMONS ft. 1635-54

Printer and bookseller, notable for the publication of A Directionfor the English Traviller, the earliest English road book with maps, which were engraved by Jacob van Langeren. The book contained 37 thumbnail maps, copied from the set of playing cards issued in 1590, combined with triangular tables showing distances between towns in each county, taken from Norden's An Intended Guyde for English Travailers (1625). Rivers form the main feature of the maps and in the first three editions towns were indicated only by initial letters. There were later editions on a larger scale from 1643 onwards by Thomas Jenner and John Garrett (fl. 1667-1718)

• 1635 A Direction for the English Traviller (small 4to) (map of \⁷orkshire omitted) 1636 Re-issued twice: map of Yorkshire added

WENCESLAUS HOLLAR 1607-77

Born in Prague, Hollar spent some time in Frankfurt, where he was taught engraving by Matthaus Merian, before coming to England in 1636. In London, under the patronage of the Earl of Arundel, he became sufficiently well known to be appointed 'Iconographer' to the King and produced an enormous number of engravings on every kind of subject. In the field of cartography he is best known for the adaptation of Saxton's large map of England and Wales (1583) which he re-engraved on 6 sheets, published by Thomas Jenner in 1644 and known as the 'Quartermaster 5 Map'. Apart from this, he engraved plans of London before and after the Great Fire, and many maps for Blome, Stent, Overton, Ogilby and others, a few of which are detailed below.

• c. 1643 Plans of Hull and Oxford c. 1700 Re-issued
• 1644 The Kingdome of England and Principality of Wales exactly described in six maps, portable for every man's pocket (the Quartermasters Map) Published by Thomas Jenner
• 1655-75 London Plans drawn before and after the Great Fire. The map dated 1666 showing the destruction in the Great Fire is of particular interest.
• 1656 Warwickshire 3 miles to 1 in. map for Sir William Dugdale
• 1666 A New & Exact Map of America
• c. 1669-76 England and Wales Large road map, 6zo x 790 mm, published by Wm Berry. Although it has not been possible to date this map precisely, it is one of the first road maps of England and Wales, possibly pre-dating Ogilby's Britannia.
• 1670-71 Maps for John Ogilby's Complete History of America

THOMAS JENNER fl. 1618-73

Printer and publisher, is well known for two cartographic works, the re-issue of Matthew Simmons' A Direction for the English Traviller and a map of England and Wales known as the Quartermaster's Map. The first he issued in 1643, having re-worked the plates used by Simmons in 1635-36, the maps being redrawn on double the original scale with place names shown in full. It seems likely that these maps were hurriedly issued to meet the demands of the armies in the Civil War: certainly the Quartermaster's Map was. This was based on Saxton's very large-scale map of 15 83, reduced to six sheets, 'portable for every man's pocket', engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar.

• 1643 A Direction for the English Traviller 1657, 1662, 1668. Maps re-issued as part of A Book of the Names of all the Hundreds contained in the Shires of the Kingdom of England 1677-80 Re-issued by John Garrett
• 1644 The Kingdome of England and Principality of Wales exactly described in six maps) portable for every man's pocket (the Quartermasters Map) 1671 Re-issued by Thomas Jenner 1688 Re-issued by John Garrett 1752 Re-issued by John Rocque 1799 Re-issued
• 1645 A new booke of Mapps exactly describing Europe

JOSEPH MOXON 1627-91

JAMES MOXON (the Elder) & JAMES MOXON (the Younger) fl. 1646-1701

The Moxon family were active as engravers over a long period and produced globes as well as maps. Joseph was known especially for his work A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography published in 1659 which went through several editions.

• 1644 (Joseph) Americae Septentrionale Pars
• 1657 (Joseph) Book of Sea Plats (charts) based on Edward Wright's Certaine Errors of Navigation
• 1670 (James) World Map
• 1671 (James) A New Description of Carolina (for John Ogilby)
• c. 1686 (Joseph) New Map of America (for Philip Lea)
• 1688 (James) Sea Coasts of Scotland (for John Adair) A New Map of the Kingdom of England (do)
• 1701 (Joseph) A New Sett of Maps (for Ed. Wells)

JOAN BLAEU 1596-1673

See Chapter 13 and Appendix B.

SIR ROBERT DUDLEY 1573-1649

Even by the standards of his time, Sir Robert Dudley was a remarkable character, whether as adventurer, scientist, mathematician, naval architect or navigator. He was the illegitimate son of one of Queen Elizabeth's favourites, the Earl of Leicester, who was eventually induced to acknowledge Dudley as heir. Dudley claimed the titles of Duke of Northumberland and Earl of Warwick and was known by them throughout his years in Italy.

At the age of twenty-one he voyaged to the West Indies with an expedition in the Earwig and the Bear, which combined harassment of Spanish shipping with exploration of the coast of Guiana. On return to England he took a prominent part in the Earl of Essex's raid on Cadiz in 1596 and received a knighthood for his services but, soon afterwards, matrimonial problems led to loss of favour at Court and to self-imposed exile. He spent the next few years travelling in Italy and finally, in 1 6o ~, settled in Florence where his skills soon brought him fame and the patronage of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. In their service he spent the following thirty years compiling his monumental sea atlas Dell' Arcano del Mare (Secrets of the Sea), a 6-volume work including 2 volumes of maps and charts and 4 volumes covering the whole field of navigation, astronomical tables, shipbuilding and kindred subjects. Although produced in Italy it was the first sea atlas by an Englishman and the first in which all the charts were drawn on Mercator's projection. Material for so splendid a work must have been drawn from many sources; in addition to his own experience, it is known that he had at his disposal the logs kept by his brother-in-law, Thomas Cavendish, the circumnavigator, and other information on the latest discoveries provided by John Davis and Abraham Kendal, famous explorers of the time.

His charts were severely but beautifully engraved by Antonio Lucini who stated that he spent twelve years on the task and used 5,000 lb. of copper in the process.

• 1646-47 Dell' Arcano del Mare: Florence (published by Francesco Onofri) 1661 Re-issued in Florence by Guiseppe Cocchini (the cartouches of all but 24 charts in the 1661 edition carry the cypher 'L⁰6⁰')

JAN JANSSON 1588-1664

See Chapter 13 and Appendix B.

PETER STENT ft. 1642-65

Print and map seller, Stent made a notable contribution to map history by acquiring and preserving a considerable stock of old map plates including many prepared for William Smith (the 'Anonymous' series of county maps), Speed, van den Keere and others, as well as Symonson's Kent, Norden's Hamshire and engravings by William Hollar. Although he himself published comparatively few of them, his stock passed, after his death, to John Overton and formed the basis of the Overton Atlases which continued in use until the middle of the eighteenth century.

• c. 1650 Hamshire by John Norden
• c. 1650 Kent by Philip Symonson
• 1652-60 12 Counties by William Smith
• 1653 Ireland
• 1662 Flanders

Plate: JOHN BILL The Bishoprick of Durham. A county map published in i626 in Bill's The Abridgement of Camden's Britania with the Maps of the severall Shires of England and Wales.

JOHN FARRER fl. 165I

An officer in the service of the Virginia Company for many years, Farrer published a famous map of Virginia giving much new, although not very accurate, detail. The map is especially notable for its portrait of Sir Francis Drake set against the Pacific coast and the comment that the 'Indian Sea' could be reached 'in 10 days march with 50 foote and 30 hors-men from the head of Jeames River' .

• 1651 A Mapp of Virginia Engraved by John Goddard and sold by John Stephenson in London. Copies exist in several states. c.1667-68 Re-issued by John Overton

ROBERT WALTON 1618-88

Printer, print and map seller, Walton was one of the first publishers to produce sheet maps of England and Wales showing the road system, even before the appearance of Ogilby's Britannia. Although he published comparatively few maps, his stock of plates was considerable and may have included those of Speed's county maps.

• 1655 Africa
• 1666 Maps of the Four Continents
• 1668 England and Wales by Thomas Porter Road Map
• 1676 Plan of London
• c. 1680 A New Map of England and Wales to which the Roads or Highways are playnly layd forth (with 31 town profiles)

Plate: PIETER VAN DEN KEERE Lancaster: Pembrokeshire London. Examples of the small county maps known as 'Miniature Speeds', originally compiled by van den Keere and subsequently published between 1627 and 1676 in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland described and abridged from a farr Larger Voloume done by John Speed.

JOHN THORNTON 1641-1708

SAMUEL THORNTON (brother) fl. 1703-39

As a map engraver and hydrographer, Thornton was one of the best-known figures of his time, being appointed Hydrographer to the Hudson Bay Company and to the East India Company. He worked closely for many years with John Seller, William Fisher (fl. 1669-91), Richard Mount, Robert Morden and Philip Lea in preparing and publishing a number of well-known atlases and charts. In particular, when John Seller was beset by difficulties in completing the later volumes of the English Pilot, Thornton took over and subsequently published Book III (1703) and Book IV (1689), the latter in conjunction with William Fisher. He also assisted with the issue of Seller's Atlas Maritimus (c. 1675) and later issued an atlas of his own under the same title.

• c. 1667 Charts of the East Coast of England onwards
• 1685 Atlas Maritimus 1700 Re-issued
• 1689 English Pilot, Book IV 1698-1789 About 37 editions c. 1700 Atlas (without title)
• 1703 English Pilot, Book III 1711 Re-issued by Samuel Thornton and further issues to about 1761

JOHN OVERTON 1640-1713

HENRY OVERTON ft. 1707-51

From about 1670 John Overton published a number of atlases without title made up from old and revised plates of maps by William Smith (the 'Anonymous Maps'), Blaeu, Jansson and some copies of Speed's maps. Later he acquired all the Speed plates then in existence and from these his son, to whom the business passed in 1707, produced several editions between about 1710 and 1743.

• c. 1667-68 A Mapp of Virginia (John Farrer)
• c. 1670 Overton Atlas c.1675-1755 Six re-issues
• 1712 England fuly described
• c. 1710-43 Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine

JOHN OGILBY 1600-76

Ogilby, one of the more colourful figures associated with cartography, started life as a dancing master and finished as the King's Cosmographer and Geographic Printer. In the course of an eventful life he built a theatre in Dublin, became the Deputy Master of Revels in Ireland, translated various Greek and Latin works and built up a book publishing business: in the process he twice lost all he possessed, first in a shipwreck during the Civil Wars and then in the Great Fire. Even this disaster he turned to advantage by being appointed to the Commission of Survey following the fire. Finally he turned to printing again and in a few short years organized a survey of all the main post roads in the country and published the first practical road Atlas, the Britannia, which was to have far-reaching effects on future map making (see also Chapter ~). The maps, engraved in strip form, give details of the roads themselves and descriptive notes of the country on either side, each strip having a compass rose to indicate changes in direction. He was the first to use the standard mile of 1,760 yards.

The Britannia was to have been part of a much larger project in 5 or 6 volumes, covering maps of all the counties, a survey of London and various town plans as well as maps of other parts of the world, but this proved too great a task and only the works detailed below were issued.

• 1670 An Accurate Description and Complete History of Africa
• 1670-71 An Accurate Description and Complete History of America Based on De Nieuwe en Onbekende Wereld by Arnold Montanus 1673 German issue (Dr 0. Dapper)
• 1672-73 Maps of Kent and Middlesex
• 1673 An Accurate Description and Complete History of Asia (Part I)
• 1675 Britannia - a Geographical and Historical Description of the Principal Roads thereof 1675-76 2 further re-issues 1675 Re-issue as Itinerarium Angliae with out text 1698 Re-issue of first edition with shorter text
• 1676-77 Survey of London (with Wm Morgan ft.1676-81)
• 1678 Map of Essex

JOHN SELLER ft. 1660-97

John Seller, appointed Hydrographer to Charles II in 1671, was a maker of mathematical instruments and globes as well as a publisher of marine and terrestrial atlases. His output was considerable and wide-ranging, covering individual charts and maps and complete atlases, but throughout his life he was beset with financial problems which limited the scope of his bigger projects. Of these, the English Pilot, the first part of which was published in 1671, was the most successful, but he was able to complete only the first volume without assistance. The details of issue of the later volumes and their subsequent editions are too complicated to be covered here; suffice to say that the work was continued in one form or another for over a century, being issued under many different names including John and Samuel Thornton, W. Fisher, C. Price, Richard and William Mount, Thomas Page and Davidson. Although the English Pilot was a popular work, Seller used Dutch sources and often actual Dutch copper plates which he adapted for the market by the use of English titles and details. As many of these plates were up to fifty years old their accuracy left much to be desired, a fact which directly inspired the call for a new coastal survey subsequently completed by Captain Greenvile Collins. Later, in 1695, Seller published an Atlas of County Maps, the Anglia Contracta.

English Pilot

• 1671-72 Books 1 and II: Northern/Southern Europe
• 1677 Mediterranean Sea (J. Thornton and W. Fisher) 1690-1803 Issued in re-arranged form
• 1689-1789 Book IV: West Indies (J. Thornton and W. Fisher)
• 1701-80 Book V: West Coast of Africa (J. Matthews ft. 1701-02, Jeremiah Seller fl. 1698-1705 and C. Price)
• 1703-61 Book III: The Orient (J. Thornton) Numerous re-issues of each book
• 1672 The Coasting Pilot 1680 Re-issued
• c. 1675 Atlas Maritimus Further editions with varying contents to 1710
• c. 1680-82 Atlas Minimus (24mo)
• 1680-85 Atlas Terrestris
• 1682-93 Atlas Anglicanus Six maps only completed
• 1685 New System of Geography (8vo) 1690, 1709 Re-issued
• c. 1690 Hydrographia Universalis (4to)
• 1695 Anglia Contracta (average size 95 x 145mm) 1696, 1701, 1703 Re-issued 1787 Re-issued in The Antiquities of England and Wales by Francis Grose

RICHARD BLOME fl. 1669-1705

Heraldic writer and cartographer, Blome flourished in the latter half of the seventeenth century. He was a prolific, but not at all an original, worker and indeed was frequently accused of plagiarism although it must be said for him that usually he made no attempt to hide his sources. His maps were attractive and quaintly designed and they still retain their charm.

His first series of county maps, the Britannia, based on the latest editions of Speed, was published in 1673 but was not a success; it was followed in i68i by an issue of smaller maps entitled Speed's Maps Epitomiz'd. These, mostly engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar and Richard Palmer (fl. 1680-1700), are embellished with dedications to county dignitaries which were amended or sometimes erased in later editions.

• 1673 Britannia, or a Geographical Description of the Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland (average size 315 x 280 mm)
• 1681 Speed's Maps Epitomiz'd (average size 180 x 230 mm) 1685 Re-issued 1693 Re-issued in Cosmography and Geography 1715 Re-published by Thomas Taylor in England Exactly described c. 1750 Re-issued by Thomas Bakewell (1716-64)
• 1682 Cosmography and Geography (by Bernhard Varen) 1683-93 Re-issued
• 1687 Isles and Territories of America 1688 French edition

Plate: THOMAS JENNER Huntingdonshire. Map from A Direction for the English Traviller first published in 1643 using enlarged re-engraved maps originally issued in 1635-36 by Matthew Simmons.

ROBERT MORDEN fl. 1668-1703

Morden occupied premises in New Cheapside and Combill where he carried on business under the sign of The Atlas' as a map and book seller and maker of instruments and globes. It cannot be claimed that he was an outstanding cartographer and his work was often much criticized but he produced interesting sets of geographical playing cards (see Chapter 9), maps of various parts of the world and the county maps for Camden's Britannia, for which he is best remembered. These were issued in 1695 as part of a new translation of the Britannia by Dr Edmund Gibson and subsequently were re-issued a number of times up to 1772.

• 1673 A New Map of the English Plantations in America (with Wm Berry)
• 1676 Playing cards depicting the Counties (with Wm Berry)
• 1680 Re-issued without suitmarks as A Pocket Book of All the Counties of England & Wales (8vo) c 1750 Re-issued as A Brief Description of England & Wales
• 1680 Geography Rectified (8vo) 1688, 1700 Re-issued
• I695 Camden's Britannia 17I5 Re-issued 1722 Re-issued: some maps revised Watermark: figure of a horse in 3 in. diameter circle 1730, I753, 1772 Re-issued (There is no general agreement on how many editions of the Britannia were issued; some authorities quote only 4, i.e. 1695, 1722, 1753 and 1772.)
• 1701 New Description and State of England Maps similar to those in the 169 5 Britannia but in miniature (average size 165 x 203 mm) 1704 Re-issued 1708 Re-issued by Herman Moll as Fifty six New and Accurate Maps of Great Britain 1720-38 Re-issued as Magna Britannia et Hibernia
• 1708 The Geographical Grammar (P. Gordon) Miniature maps (average size 120 x 130 mm) of the Continents and European countries

WILLIAM BERRY 1639-1718

A publisher and seller of maps and globes who is known to have been in business at a number of London addresses between about 1671 and 1700. The son of a Warwickshire baker, his earliest known work was a book on Astronomy published in 1669 in conjunction with Robert Morden with whom he later published and sold the famous playing card maps. In his own right he became renowned as the publisher of a series of two-sheet maps based on the originals by the eminent French cartographer, Nicolas Sanson. He is also known for a very rare copy of a large road map (620 x 790 mm) of England and Wales by Wenceslaus Hollar which has been tentatively dated between 1669 and 1676.

• 1673 A New Map of the English Plantations in America (with Robert Morden)
• 1676 Playing cards depicting the Counties (with Robert Morden)
• c. 1679 Grand Roads of England
• c. 1680 Amapp of All the World 1689 Atlas Collections of maps with differing contents

JOHN ADAMS fl. 1670-96

Within two or three years of the publication of Ogilby's Britannia, John Adams compiled a 12-sheet road map showing distances between cities and market towns in England and Wales, which was based on Saxton's large-scale map of 1583. This was published between 1677 and 1679 and was followed by his Index Villaris, a gazetteer providing supplementary detail. Soon afterwards, no doubt influenced by the scientific projects of Jean Dominique Cassini and Jean Picard in France, Adams conceived the idea of carrying out a geodetic survey of England and Wales but, in spite of receiving encouragement from the Royal Society, he failed to obtain financial backing. However, in 1685, as a result of further surveying, he did issue a 2-sheet map, bordered with distance tables, which was much more manageable and accurate than the original 12-sheet map. His maps were important in their day and were used by Henry Overton and Philip Lea among others.

• 1677-79 England and Wales 12-sheet road map 1690-92 Re-issued by Philip Lea
• 1680 Index Villaris, or an Alphabetical Table 'fall Cities, Market Towns, Parishes, Villages, Private Seats in England and Wales 1690, 1700 Re-issued
• 1685 Angliae totius Tabula 2-sheet road map with distance tables

ROBERT PLOT 1640-96

Dr Plot, an Oxford historian, planned to write A Natural History of England but only the volumes for Oxfordshire and Staffordshire were completed; both include very decorative maps of the counties.

• 1677 Oxfordshire, engraved by M. Burghers
• 1686 Staffordshire, engraved by J. Browne

Plate: ROBERT MORDEN Monmouth London 1695 . County map included in a new version of William Camden's Britannia published in several editions between 1695 and 1772.

MOSES PITY fl. I654-96

A London bookseller who planned, in association with Job. van Waesbergen, a large world atlas in 1 2 volumes on the basis of the Blaeu/Jansson atlases but in the event the task proved too costly and only 4 volumes with maps were completed; indeed, the undertaking ruined him and he was imprisoned for two years for debt. The only map by Pitt himself is of the Arctic regions, entitled A Descriphon 'fPlaces next to the North Pole.

• 1680-83 Atlas Vol.1: English Atlas Vol.II: World and Northern Regions Vol.III: Germany Vol. IV: Netherlands

FRANCIS LAMB fl. 1670-I 700

Lamb was an engraver working in Newgate Street in the City, employed by most of the map publishers of his time, including Blome, Ogilby, Seller and Morden. His most important work, the pocket atlas of Ireland, published by him in conjunction with Robert Morden and William Berry, was a straightforward reduction, with minor alterations, of Sir William Petty's atlas of 1685 . It was as popular as the original work and further editions were issued until 1732.

• c. 1689 A Geographicall Description of the Kingdom of Ireland: 39 maps (12mo) 1689, c. 1695 Re-issued 1720 Re-issued by Thomas Bowles with roads added 1728, 1732 Re-issue of the 1720 edition by John Bowles

WILLIAM HACK c. 1656-1708

Following a conventional apprenticeship as a map maker to a member of the Drapers' Guild, William Hack moved to a more adventurous life and is thought by some to have sailed with a notorious privateer, Bartholomew Sharpe. Whether this was so or not, Hack later made manuscript copies of a Spanish book of rutters - sailing instructions, sea charts and maps - covering South America, captured by Sharpe from the Spanish in the course of an expedition raiding the West Coast of South America. The Atlas was presented to Charles II and was subsequently of great value to English navigators. Apart from these copies, Hack also compiled a very large number of other manuscript charts and maps of America, the Indian Ocean and the Far East bound in 'atlas' form, possibly about 1,600 altogether, but none was engraved or printed.

• c. 1682-83 Waggoner of the Great South Seas - 'the Buccaneer's Atlas' Copied and adapted from the captured Spanish charts. The comparatively few surviving copies are to be found in museums and the great map collections, notably in the William L. Clements Library (University of Michigan), Ann Arbor.

PHILIP LEA fl. 1683-1700

A cartographer and map publisher with premises in Cheapside, particularly well known for his re-issue of Saxton's Atlas of England and Wales. Apart from this, Lea built up a very considerable business working in conjunction with his contemporaries, Robert Morden, John Overton, John Seller and others revising and re-engraving older maps as well as producing many new maps of his own.

• c. 1686 New maps of America, Asia and Europe
• 1687 The Traveller's Guide 'A new map of England and Wales with the direct and crossroads'
• c. 1689 All the Shires of England and Wales 1693 Re-issued as Atlas Anglois (French edition) 1693-94 English edition These editions of Saxton's County Maps were completely revised with the addition of roads, town plans, boundaries of hundreds and new coats of arms
• 1690 An Atlas containing the best maps of the World
• 1690-92 A new map of Ireland
• 1690-92 Angliae totius Tabula (John Adams) 12-sheet map based on Saxton
• c. 1693 The Shires of England and Wales (C. Saxton)
• c. 1695 A Travelling Mapp of England Containing the Principall Roads
• c. 1700 Hydrographia Universalis (8vo) - Hydrographia Galliae

EDMUND HALLEY 1656-1742

One of the great names in the history of astronomy and cartography. A celebrated mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, Astronomer Royal in succession to Flamsteed, his name is perpetuated in the name of the comet, the orbit of which he calculated. As a young man he spent two years in St Helena taking observations and in the years 1698-1700 took part in voyages in the North and South Atlantic studying meteorology, magnetic variations and ocean currents. The charts he issued as a result of his studies were widely used and reproduced.

• 1688 A Meteorological Chart of the Trade Winds
• 1701 A New and Correct Chart of the Western and Southern Oceans Chart of Magnetic Variations in the Atlantic Ocean 1702 A Correct Chart of the Terraqueous Globe New edition to cover the whole world 1710 Re-issued with amendments by Pierre Mortier 1744-58 Revised editions c. 1740-45 Re-issued by R. and J. Ottens
• 1702 A New and Correct Chart of the Channel between England and France
• 1728 Atlas maritimus & commercialis

CAPTAIN GREENVILE COLLINS fl. 1669-96

Captain Collins was an officer in the Royal Navy and during his service he took part in an expedition with Sir John Narborough to the Straits of Magellan and along the Chilean coast. He was master of the frigate Charles from 1676 to 1679 and saw service in the wars with Algiers, later being promoted to Commander. Although little more is known about him he must have been an outstanding personality for even before his great survey he was appointed 'Hydrographer to the King' and made a Younger Brother of Trinity House.

We have written in Chapter 6 of the events in the period from i66o to i68o when it became evident that a complete new survey of the coasts of great Britain was required and consequently in i68i Charles II issued a proclamation appointing 'Captain Collins Commander of the Merlin Yacht to make a survey of the sea coasts of the Kingdom by measuring all the sea coasts with a chain and taking all the bearings of the Headlands' . This formidable and costly project, the first systematic survey of British coastal waters, was completed in about eight years and the resulting Great Britain's Coasting Pilot containing 48 charts was published in 1693 arid finally replaced the old Dutch charts on which the English had relied for so long.

• 1693 Great Britain's Coasting Pilot 1723-92, 21 re-issues including French edition in 1757 by J. N. Bellin

RICHARD MOUNT fl. 1684-1722

WILLIAM MOUNT d. 1769

THOMAS PAGE d. 1762

The ramifications of the families and successors of Richard Mount and Thomas Page are too involved to concern us here; we need only say that the business founded by Richard Mount had a long history of chart publishing, first under his own name and later under the joint names of Mount and Page, continuing through the younger members of their families well into the nineteenth century. Richard Mount published the early editions of the Great Britain's Coasting Pilot (Greenvile Collins) and he and his successors were involved in the issue of many editions of the English Pilot (John Seller).

• 1693 (Greenvile Collins) Great Britain's Coasting Pilot Numerous re-issues
• c. 1692-95 (John Seller/Wm Fisher) Atlas Maritimus
• 1698-1789 (John Seller/John Thornton) English Pilot Numerous re-issues
• 1702 Atlas Maritimus Novus 1708, 1721, 1750, 1755 Re-issues
• 1705 World Map in Harris's Complete Collection of Voyages
• 1737 Coasting Pilot
• 1764 A complete set of new charts of the coasts of Portugal and the Mediterranean Sea

EDWARD WELLS 1667-1727

A mathematician and teacher of geography, Wells issued in 1700 A New Sett of Maps dedicated to William, Duke of Gloucester, who was then a student of geography at Oxford; unfortunately the Duke died, aged eleven, in July of the same year. The maps, highly regarded when issued for their accuracy, were bold and colourful but show comparatively little detail. His map of North America was one of the last to show California as an island.

• 1700 A New Sett of Maps both of Antient and Present Geography 1701-38 Numerous re-issues

HERMAN MOLL fl. 1678-1732

A Dutch émigré who came to London about 1680 and worked there as an engraver, later setting up his own business and becoming, after the turn of the century, the foremost map publisher in England. His prolific output covered a wide range of loose maps of all parts of the world, varying from miniatures to very decorative large maps as well as atlases. His work enjoyed a high reputation and much of it was copied by other publishers, a fact of which he was always very conscious.

• c. 1700 A General Atlas (no title) (large folio: maps in four folds) 1730 Re-issued
• 1701 A System 'fGeography (small folio)
• 1708 Filty six New and Accurate Maps of Great Britain (Morden)
• 1709 Atlas manuale - A New Set of Maps of all parts of the Earth (8vo) 1723 Re-issued
• 1710 The south part of Great Britain called England and Wales
• 1711-17 Atlas Geographicus (4to)
• 1714 The north part of great Britain called Scotland (Thomas Bowles)
• 1715 A new map 'fGreat Britain
• 1715 A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye Continent of North America (on 2 sheets - the 'Beaver' map) 1726-40 Re-issued
• c.1719-36 A new and Complete Atlas Re-issues entitled The World Described
• 1721 Geographia Antiqua
• 1724 A New Description of England and Wales 1724-26 Re-issued as A Set of Fifty New and Correct Maps of England and Wales (with T. and J. Bowles) 1728, 1739, 1747, 1753 Re-issued under original title
• 1727 AtlasMinor Numerous re-issues

Plate: EDWARD WELLS A New Map of the Terraqueous Globe according to the Ancient Discoveries. World map from A New Selt of Maps published in 1700 dedicated to thc young Duke of Gloucester who died in the same year. The vignette at the bottom right depicts the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford where the Atlas was printed.

JOHN HARRIS fl. 1686-1746

• c.1700 A View of the World in Divers Projections

CHARLES PRICE c. 1665-1733

Price, a land surveyor and cartographer, seems to have had an unsettled career and he is known more by his association with other cartographers and publishers than for his own output. For a time he worked in association with John Senex, then in partnership with Jeremiah Seller and, later, for a short period with George Willdey. With all these he published a number of very decorative, and now quite rare, maps.

• c. 1705 A New and Correct Map of Great Britain & Ireland: 2 sheets
• c. 1710 (with John Senex) A New Map of Great Britain
• c.1714 A New & Correct Map 'f the World: published by George Wilidey 

GEORGE WILLDEY fl. c. 1695-1733

Map seller and publisher about whom comparatively little is known. Apart from publishing a number of maps and atlases at his premises known as 'The Great Toy Shop next to the Dogg Tavern, the corner of Ludgate Street near St Paul's', he also sold there globes, spectacles, snuff and 'other useful Curiosities'. For a time he was in association with Charles Price, a number of whose maps he used in his atlases. He is best known for the re-issue of Saxton's Atlas of England and Wales, the maps bearing his imprint. It is thought that this edition was intended primarily for travelling purposes, which may account for its extreme rarity.

• 1710 Map of Barbados
• c. 1714 A New & Correct Map of the World (Charles Price)
• 1715 Great Britain & Ireland
• c. 1717 Atlas of the World
• 1720 A New & Correct Map of 30 miles round London
• c. 1730 The Shires of England and Wales Re-issue of Saxton's Atlas from the plates amended by Philip Lea for the 1689-93 editions

CHRISTOPHER MAIRE fl. 1711

• 1711 Map of Durham (large scale)

JOHN SENEX fl. 1690-1740

Publisher and engraver, John Senex was a contemporary of Herman Moll and no doubt, to some extent, a rival, though his output was rather smaller. In conjunction with Charles Price and James Maxwell ("". 1708-14) he produced some fine maps of the world and the continents as well as loose maps of various countries. Apart from these he seems to have had a particular interest in road maps and in 1719 he issued a corrected edition of Ogilby's Britannia in miniature form which went through many editions.

•  c. 1710 (with Charles Price) A New Map of Great Britain
• 1711 Atlas (20 maps published without title)
• 1712 Map of Ireland
• 1714 The English Atlas
• 1719 An actual survey of all the principal roads of England and Wales (8vo) Numerous re-issues up to c. 1775 including a French edition in 1766
• 1719 World and the Continents
• 1721 A new General Atlas of the World (small folio) 1723 Hertfordshire Re-issue of John Norden's map first published in 1593-98

THOMAS BOWLES fl. c. 1714-c. 1763 JOHN BOWLES 1701-79

CARRINGTON BOWLES 1724-93

BOWLES and CARVER fl. 1794-1832

The members of the Bowles family were publishers and map sellers rather than cartographers, their considerable output over a century or more covering many of the works of their contemporaries. A completely comprehensive list of these is beyond the scope of this volume but their best-known publications are listed below.

• 1714 (Thomas Bowles) The north part of Great Britain called Scotland (H. Moll)
• 1720 (Thomas Bowles) A Geographicall Description of the Kingdom of Ireland 1728, 1732 Re-issue of Francis Lamb's Atlas (c. 1689) with roads added 1728, 1732 Re-issue by John Bowles
• 1724-26 (T. and J. Bowles) A Set of Fifty New and Correct Maps of England and Wales (H. Moll)
• 1731 (T. and J. Bowles) A new map of Scotland or North Britain
• 1732 (T. and J. Bowles) Kingdom of Ireland 1765 Re-issued
• 1760 (T. and J. Bowles) Re-issue of Saxton's Britannia (1583)
• 1766 (Carrington Bowles) Ellis's English Atlas (John Ellis and William Palmer fl. 1766-1800
• 1769 (Carrington Bowles) A General Atlas 'f New and Current Maps by Palairet and others 1774 Re-issued
• 1772 (Carrington Bowles) Atlas of Road Maps
• 1775-80 (Carrington Bowles) Bowles Universal Atlas (Jean Palairet)
• 1782 (Carrington Bowles) Bowles Post Chaise Companion
• 1785 (Carrington Bowles) New Medium English Atlas (4to)
• 1785 (Carrington Bowles) Pocket Atlas
• 1785 (Carrington Bowles) Paterson's British Itinerary (Daniel Paterson)
• 1794-96 (Bowles and Carver) New Traveller's Guide
• 1794-98 (Bowles and Carver) Universal Atlas

EMANUEL BOWEN fl.

1714-67 THOMAS BOWEN ft. 1767-90

Emanuel Bowen, map and print seller, was engraver to George II and to Louis XV of France and worked in London from about 1714 onwards producing some of the best and most attractive maps of the century. He had plans for completing a major County Atlas but, finding the task beyond his means, joined with Thomas Kitchin to publish The Large English Atlas. Many of the maps were issued individually from 1749 onwards and the whole atlas was not finally completed until 1760. With one or two exceptions they were the largest maps of the counties to appear up to that time (690 x 510mm) and are unusual in that the blank areas round each map are filled with historical and topographical detail which makes fascinating and amusing reading. The atlas was re-issued later in reduced size. Apart from his county maps and atlases of different parts of the world he also issued (with John Owen fl. 1720) a book of road maps based, as was usual at that time, on Ogilby but again incorporating his own style of historical and heraldic detail.

In spite of his royal appointments and apparent prosperity he died in poverty and his son, who carried on the business, was no more fortunate and died in a Clerkenwell workhouse in 1790.

• c. 1714 Maps of the Continents
• 1720 (with John Owen) Britannia Depicta or Ogilby Improved (small 4t0) Numerous editions to c. 1764 in varying sizes
• 1744-47 A Complete System of Geography
• 1744-48 Maps for Complete Collection of Voyages (Harris)
• 1751 Complete Atlas or Distinct View of the Known World
• 1755-60 (with Thomas Kitchin) The Large English Atlas (average size 690 x 510 mm) 1763, 1767, 1777, 1785, 1787 Further editions and enlargements
• 1758 (with John Gibson) Atlas Minimus (24mo) 1774 Re-issued
• 1762 (with Thomas Kitchin) The Royal English Atlas (average size 215 x 315 mm) 1778, 1780 Re-issued 1794-1828 Re-issued as The English Atlas
• c. 1763 (with Benjamin Martin fl. 1759-63) The Natural History of England
• 1766 Universal History of the World
• 1767 (with Thomas Bowen) Atlas Anglicanus (average size 225 x 320 mm) 1777 Re-issued
• c. 1777 (Thomas Bowen) The World showing the Discoveries of Capt. Cook and other circumnavigators
• c. 1784 (Thomas Bowen) Maps in Rapin's History of England

THOMAS TAYLOR fl. 1670-1721

• 1715 England Exactly Described Maps from Richard Blome's Speed's Maps Epitomiz'd (8vo) 1716, 1718, 1731 Re-issued
• 1718 Principality of Wales Exactly Described The first separate atlas of Wales

Plate: EMANUEL BOWEN Rutlandshire London 1756. County map published in the Universal Magazine. 

THOMAS GARDNER fl. 1719

• 1719 Pocket Guide for the English Traveller: road maps (small 4t0)

ADMIRAL SIR JOHN NORRIS c. 1660-1749

• 1723-28 Compleat Sett of New Charts containing The North Sea, Cattegat and Baltick 1756 Re-issued

HENRY BEIGHTON 1687-1743

• 1728 Warwickshire: 1 in. map 1750 Re-issued

HENRY POPPLE fl. 1732-33

Produced the best map up to that date (1733) of the North American continent, consisting of a key map and 20 individual sheets.

• 1733 A Map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements adjacent thereto 1737-47 Re-issues by Covens and Mortier, le Rouge and T. Bowen

Plate: THOMAS BADESLADE Cumberland. From a series of small county maps engraved by W. H. Toms issued in 1741-42 entitled Chorographia Britannica, said to have been produced for an intended royal tour by George II

THOMAS BADESLADE fl. 1719-45

Surveyor and engineer who prepared the maps for Chorographia Britannica, a series of small county maps produced for George II for an intended royal tour of England and Wales. Each map, engraved by W. H. Toms, has a column of historical and topical notes of great local interest.

• 1741-42 Chorographia Britannica (8vo) Three issues 1743, 1745, 1747 Re-issue

GEORGE BICKHAM (Senior) 1684-1758

GEORGE BICKHAM (Junior) 1735-67

George Bickham (Senior) was a noted author and engraver of many works on penmanship including The Universal Penman, claimed to be the finest English book on calligraphy. His son was equally well known as an engraver and publisher and between them they published, in '743, a very beautifully produced volume, The British Monarchy, consisting of descriptive text and historical notes illustrated with 5 rather sketchy 'maps' . The better known bird's-eye perspective views were engraved by George Bickham (Junior) between the years 1750 and 1754.

• 1743- c.1748 The British Monarchy: 5 maps engraved by c. 1748 George Bickham (Senior) (The King of Great Britain's Dominions in Europe, Africa and America; British Isles; Ireland; Scotland; Chart of the Sea Coasts)
• c.1754 The British Monarchy 43 bird's-eye views of the English and Welsh counties engraved by George Bickham (Junior) 1796 Re-issued as A Curious Antique Collection of Bird's eye Views

RICHARD WILLIAM SEALE fl. 1732-75

• c. 1744-47 Maps of the Continents
• c. 1745 Maps in Mr Tindal's Continuation of Rapin's History of England

ROBERT DODSWELL 1703-64

JOHN COWLEY fl. 1733-44

• 1744 Geography of England
• 1745 Re-issued as New Sett of Pocket Maps of all the Counties of England and Wales

SAMUEL SIMPSON fl. 1746

• 1746 The Agreeable Historian or Compleat English Traveller (miniature county maps)

JOHN ROCQUE c. 1704-62

Little is known of John Rocque's early life except that he was of Huguenot extraction and was living and working in London as an engraver from about 1734. His early experience in preparing plans of great houses and gardens for the nobility led him to take up large-scale surveying for which he developed a distinctive and effective style involving new ways of indicating land use and hill contours. He is best known for a very large-scale plan of London published in 1746 and for a pocket set of county maps, The English Traveller, issued in the same year. He spent some years in Ireland surveying for estate maps and in 1756 he published a well-known Exact Survey of the City of Dublin.

• 1746 An exact survey of the Cities of London and Westminster: 24 sheets, scale 26 in. to 1 mile 1747,1748,1751, 1769 Re-issued
• 1746 The English Traveller (8vo) 1753, 1762, 1764 Re-issued as the Small British Atlas
• 1748 Environs of London 1763, 1769 re-issued
• 1750 Plan of Bristol
• 1752 TheQuartermaster's Map (Thomas Jenner)
• 1752-65 Large-scale maps of Shropshire, Middlesex, Berkshire, Surrey
• 1753 Small British Atlas (8vo) 1762, 1764 Re-issued 1769 Re-issued as England Displayed
• 1756 An Exact Survey of the City of Dublin: 4 sheets
• 1760 County of Dublin: 4 sheets 1799, 1802 Reduced versions issued by Laurie and Whittle
• 1761 A general map of North America
• c. 1763-65 A set of Plans and Forts in America (published by Mary A. Rocque)
• 1764 A collection of Plans of The Principal Cities of Great Britain and Ireland

THOMAS JEFFERYS c. 1695-1771

An outstanding cartographer and publisher whose productions ranged from 1 in. to 1 mile county maps to some of the finest maps of the tiine of North America and the West Indies. These are regarded as his most important works although unfortunately many of them were only published after his death by Sayer and Bennett or by his business successor, William Faden. He was appointed Geographer to the Prince of Wales and to George III but, as so often happened in the eighteenth century, Jefferys enjoyed a very high reputation for his work and yet failed to obtain much material reward and, indeed, was bailed out of bankruptcy at one stage during the production of his American atlases

• 1747-79 County maps 1 in. to 1 mile Bedfordshire, Buckingham, Cumberland, Durham, Huntingdon, Northants, Oxfordshire, Westmorland, Yorkshire
• 1749 The Shires of England & Wales Re-issue of Saxton's An Atlas of England & Wales from the plates amended by Philip Lea for the 1689-93 editions with the imprint of George Willdey (c. 1730 edn) removed
• 1749 (with Thomas Kitchin) Small English Atlas (4to) 1751, 1775, 1785 Re-issued 1787 Re-issued as An English Atlas or Concise View of England & Wales
• 1755 A Map of the Most inhabited part of New England (4 sheets)
• 1760 Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions in North and South America
• 1761 Description of the Maritime Parts of France
• c. 1762 A general topography of North America and the West Indies
• 1762 Description of the Spanish Islands and Settlements on the Coasts of the West Indies
• 1765 (with Benjamin Donnle) Devonshire: 12 sheets and key map
• 1775-76 North American Pilot (Sayer and Bennett) 1777-84 5 re-issues 1799-1807 Re-issued by Laurie and Whittle in 2 parts
• 1775 West India Atlas (Sayer and Bennett) 1777 (French), 1780, 1783, 1794 Re-issued 1799 Re-issued by Laurie and Whittle
• 1775 American Atlas (Sayer and Bennett) 1776, 1778 Re-issued

THOMAS KITCHIN 1718-84

Working at premises at The Star in London's Holborn as an engraver and publisher, Kitchin produced a very wide range of books on many subjects as well as topographical work. For many years he worked in conjunction with Emanuel Bowen and Thomas Jefferys and apart from the atlases he published with them, he produced maps of every sort for magazines and books on history and the antiquities.

• 1747-60 Maps for The London Magazine
• 1749 (with Thomas Jefferys) Small English Atlas (4to) 1751, '775, 1785 Re-issued 1787 Re-issued as An English Atlas orConcise View of England and Wales
• 1755 -60 (with Emanual Bowen) The Large English Atlas 1763, 1767, 1777, 1785, 1787 Further editions and enlargements
• 1762 (with Emanuel Bowen) The Royal English Atlas 1778, 1780 Re-issued 1794-I 828 Re-issued as The English Atlas
• 1764 England Illustrated
• 1768 A General Atlas 1773-1810 Numerous re-issues by Sayer and Bennett, and Laurie and Whittle
• 1769 Kitchin's Pocket Atlas (8vo)
• 1770 Kitchin's English Atlas (4to)
• 1786 (with Henry Boswell ft. 1786) Antiquitiesof England and Wales
• c. 1789 A New Universal Atlas (Laurie and Whittle) 1796, 1799 Re-issued

T. OSBORNE fl. 1748

• 1748 Geographia Magnae Britanniae: 63 maps, approx. 150 mm square 1750 Re-issued

LEWIS MORRIS fl. 1737-48

• 1748 Plans of harbours, bars, bays and roads in St George's Channel 1801 Revised and re-issued by his son, William Morris

WILLIAM HERBERT 1718-95

• 1752 Straits of Malacca
• 1757 Chart of the Western Atlantic
• c. 175 8 A New Directory for the East Indies 1767 Re-issued

Plate: LEWIS MORRIS Coast near Aulford Haven, Pembrokeshire. A chart from Plans of harbonrs, bars, bays and roads in St George's Channel published in 1748. This work was revised and re-issued by Morris's son, William, in 1801.

ISAAC TAYLOR 1730-1807

• 1754-1800 Large-scale county maps: 1754-86 Herefordshire 1759 Hampshire 1765-95 Dorsetshire 1772-1800 Worcestershire 1777-86-1800 Gloucestershire

JOHN GIBSON ft. 1750-92

• 1755 A New Map of North America with the West India Islands
• 1756 Middle British Colonies
• 1758 (with Emanuel Bowen) Atlas Minimus (24mo) 1774 Re-issued
• c. 1763 A New & Complete Map of all America 1772-94 Several re-issues with differing titles

JOHN MITCHELL 1711-68

Born in Virginia, John Mitchell studied medicine at Edinburgh, later returning to his birthplace where he practised as a physician, becoming well known not only as a doctor but also as a botanist and surveyor. About 1746 ill health forced him to return to England, where he compiled a map of the Colonies which, with official support, later became the famous Map 'f/he British and French Dominions in North America. The map, showing the British and French Colonies, was used in the peace negotiations between Britain and the American colonies in 1782-83 and later in discussions on the boundary settlement between the USA and Canada. Even as late as 1843 it was still accepted as an accurate and reliable map.

• 1755 A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America (8 sheets) 1757-91 21 re-issues

ROBERT SAYER 1735-94

JOHN BENNETT fl. 1770-84

From premises in Fleet Street, Robert Sayer traded as a print seller and map publisher either under his own name between the years 1751 and 1770 and 1784 and 1794, or in partnership with John Bennett as Sayer and Bennett in the intervening years. During his long business life he published a large number of maps by his contemporaries, Kitchin, Jefferys, Bellin, d'Anville and others as well as a re-issue of Saxton's Britannia of 1583. On his death his stock was taken over by Laurie and Whittle who re-issued his material in many varied editions .

• c.1763 Large English Atlas (Bowen and Kitchin)
• c. 1763 Re-issue of Saxton's Britannia (1583)
• 1766 Atlas Britannique
• 1773-81 General Atlas describing the whole universe (Thomas Kitchin)
• 1775 West India Atlas (Thomas Jefferys)
• 1775-76 North American Pilot (Thomas Jefferys)
• 1775 American Atlas (Thomas Jefferys)
• 1775-81 Fast India Pilot
• 1776 American Military Pocket Atlas ('Holster Atlas')
• 1778 Neptune Occidental: A Pilot for the West Indies 1782 Re-issued
• 1781-86 Complete Channel Pilot
• c. 1784 Oriental Pilot
• 1787 An English Atlas or Concise Wiew of England and Wales (4to)

G. ROLLOS fl. 1754-89

• 1764 (with W. Rider) Atlas of the World
• 1769 England Displayed
• 1779 Universal Traveller

W. RIDER fl. 1764

• 1764 (with G. Rollos) Atlas of the World

BENJAMIN DONNIE 1729-98

In 1759 the Royal Society of Arts, then known as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, offered an award of £100 for the best original 1 in. to 1 mile county surveys. Donn was the first successful applicant with a 12-sheet map of Devonshire, engraved by Thos Jefferys, published in 1765.

• 1765 Devonshire: 12 sheets and key map 1799 Re-issued on one sheet by William Faden
• 1769 Eleven miles round Bristol: 4 sheets
• 1790 ........Bath

JOHN ELLIS fl. 1750-96

• 1765 New English Atlas
• 1766 (with William Palmer) Ellis's English Atlas (8vo) 1766 (French), 1768, '773, '777 Re-issued

CAPTAIN JOSEPH SPEER fl. 1766-96

• 1766 West India Pilot 1771, 1773, 1785 Re-issued
• 1796 General Chart of the West Indies

JOHN ANDREWS fl. 1766-1809

• 1766-73 Large-scale maps of Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and Kent
• c. 1772 A Collection of Plans of the Capital Cities of every Empire
• 1776 A map of the country 65 miles round London
• 1786 England and Wales
• c. 1792 Plans of the Principal Cities of the World
• 1797 Maps in Historical Atlas of England

ALEXANDER DALRTMPLE 1737-1808

As hydrographer to the East India Company from 1779 to '795 and then to the Admiralty, Dalrymple produced something like 1,000 maps and charts of the lands bordering the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. He was obsessed with the idea of the existence of a great southern continent and many of his charts reflected his determination to prove his case, even long after Captain Cook had shown that inhabited lands did not exist in the far south. It would not be practicable to attempt to list here all his work but the following are some of his more important collections of charts; many others were bound to meet special requirements.

• 1767 Account of Discoveries in the South Pacific before 1764
• 1771-72 A Collection of Charts and Memoirs
• 1774-75 A Collection of Plans and Ports in the East Indies 1782, 1787 Re-issued
• 1791 Oriental Repertory
• 1792 A Collection of Charts and Plans
• 1792 Atlas of Charts and Plans

P. RUSSELL fl. 1769

• 1769 (with Owen Price ft. 1769) England Displayed

C. DICET AND Co. fl. 1770

• c. 1770 The Shires of England and Wales Final re-issue of Saxton's An Atlas of England & Wales from the plates amended by Philip Lea for the 1689-93 editions and subsequently used by George Willdey (c. 1730) and Thomas Jefferys (c. 1749)

DANIEL PATERSON fl. 1771-91

• 1771-1832 Paterson's Roads 18 re-issues
• 1772-99 Paterson's Travelling Dictionary
• 1785-1807 Paterson's British Itinerary 4 re-issues
• 1786 Direct and Principal Cross Roads in England & Wales
• 1791 Map of the Environs of London

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK 1729-79

This is not the place to enlarge on the life of the greatest British navigator, but no list of cartographers would be complete without including details of his Pacific charts.

• 1773 Volume 1 An account of a voyage round the World in the years 5768-75
• 1777 Volume II: A voyage towards the South Pole and round the world
• 1780 Volume III: A voyage to the Pacific Ocean
• 1784 Atlas

SAMUEL DUNN fl. 1774-94

• 1774 A Map of the British Empire in North America
• 1774 A New Atlas of the Mundane System 1786, 1794, 1796, i8oo, c. i8io Re-issued

WILLIAM FADEN 1750-1836

Following the death of Thomas Jefferys in 1771 William Faden took over and continued the business, trading as Faden and Jefferys and producing excellent maps well into the nineteenth century. He was particularly interested in the mapping of North America for which he was as well known as his predecessor. In addition to the atlases mentioned below, he issued many special collections of large-scale and regional maps prepared for customers' individual requirements. All his work was of splendid quality and he was chosen to print the four sheets of the first Ordnance Survey map - of Kent - which was published in 1801. His business was taken over by James Wyld who re-issued many of his maps.

• 1775 World Map
• c. 1777 North American Atlas
• 1777 The British Colonies in North America Numerous re-issues to 1820, and others by James Wyld until c. 1840
• 1778 General Atlas (large folio)
• 1781 The Roads of Great Britain Numerous re-issues to c. 1833
• 1785 The United States of North America
• 1793 Petit Neptune Francaise
• 1797 General Atlas Various re-issues containing collections of different maps
• 1798 Atlases minimus universalis
• 1799 Re-issue of map of Devonshire by Benjamin Donn

JAMES RENNELL 1742-1830

As the first Surveyor General of Bengal from 1767 to 1777 Rennell directed a comprehensive survey of the East India Company's lands and subsequently published maps of Bengal and other provinces followed by The Bengal Atlas in 1779. Considering the vastness of the areas covered, the difficulties encountered, and the speed with which it was accomplished, Rennell's mapping in India was a remarkable achievement and stood the test of time well into the next century. Indeed, he should be counted among our most able cartographers and, although ill health made it impossible for him to continue his practical survey work after 1777, he left his mark as adviser to the Indian Survey Office for something like half a century.

• 1779 The Bengal Atlas 1780, 1781, 1783 Re-issued
• 1782 Map of Hindoustan 1785 Re-issued
• 1788-94 The Provinces of Delhi, Agra etc and the Indian Peninsula

JOSEPH FREDERICK WALLET DES BARRES 1721-I 824

Of Swiss extraction, des Barres became a British subject early in life and trained as a military engineer, subsequently serving with the British Army at the Seige of Quebec where he came to the attention of General Wolfe. After the fall of Quebec he surveyed parts of the coasts of Nova Scotia and the principal harbours in Newfoundland and then, on Admiralty orders, undertook a ten-year survey of the coasts of New England as well as Nova Scotia. Returning to England in 1773 he supervised the engraving and publication of his work which was issued about 1784 as The Atlantic Neptune, now recognized as one of the finest collections of charts and coloured views ever published. Copies vary very greatly in content from edition to edition. In later life des Barres was appointed Lieut. Governor of Cape Breton Province and Governor of Prince Edward Island. He died at the age of 103 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

• 1784 The Atlantic Neptune, Vols I-IV: tall large folio Numerous re-issues

JOHN HARRISON fl. 1784-91

• 1784-89 Atlas to accompany Rapin's History of England (originally by Paul de RapinThoyras published c. 1730-50)
• 1787 Africa
• 1791 English Counties
• 1792 Re-issued
• 1815 General Atlas

GEORGE AUGUSTUS WALPOOLE fl. 1784

• 1784-94 (with Alexander Hogg) The New British Traveller (8vo)

ALEXANDER HOGG fl. 1778-1805

Published many works on antiquities which included re-issues of maps by Thomas Kitchin, Thomas Conder and others.

• 1784-94 (with G. A. Walpoole) The New British Traveller (8vo)
• c. 1784 A New Map of the Southern Part of Scotland

ROBERT WILKINSON fl. 1785-1825

• 1785 Re-issue of Bowen and Kitchin's The Large English Atlas
• 1794 General Atlas of the World c. 1800, 1802, 1816 Re-issued
• 1820 New Holland
• 1823 North America
• 1825 East India Islands

THOMAS CONDER fl. 1775-1801

An engraver whose work is found in a number of historical works, particularly Henry Boswell's Antiquities of England and Wales (1786). He also engraved maps in Walpoole's The New British Traveller (1784).

JOHN CART c. 1754-1835

Many writers regard John Cary as one of the finest of English cartographers. His maps, of course, are not decorative in the seventeenth-century sense but he came on the scene at a time when the large-scale county maps had recently become available, roads were being used as never before and accurate geographical information from distant countries was being received in greater and greater detail. His fine craftsmanship and ability as an engraver enabled him to make the fullest use of these sources and from them he produced a wide range of maps of great accuracy and clarity. His work covered not only county maps but world atlases, road maps, town and canal plans, sea charts and terrestrial and celestial globes. His business was eventually taken over by G. F. Cruchley ~. 1822-75) who continued to use Cary's engravings throughout his life and it is believed that some plates were still in use in the present century. In this work we can give only a summary of his more important publications.

• 1786 Actual Survey of the country fifteen miles round London (8vo)
• 1787 New and Correct English Atlas (4to) 1793-1881 Numerous re-issues
• 1789 Camden's Britannia 1806 Re-issued
• 1790 Cary's Travellers' Companion (8vo) 1791-1828 Numerous re-issues
• 1794 New Maps of England and Wales with part of Scotland (4to)
• 1798-1828 Cari's New Itinerary 11 Re-issues
• 1805 (with J. Stockdale) New British Atlas
• 1808 Cari's New Universal Atlas
• 1809 Cari's English Atlas 1811, 1818, 1828, 1834 Re-issued
• 1813 New Elementari Atlas

Plate: JOHN CARY Cambridgeshire London 1787. An example of the beautifully engraved maps in Gary's New and Correct English Atlas which was issued in many editions.

ROBERT LAURIE c. 1755-1836

JAMES WHITTLE 1757-1818

RICHARD HOLMES LAURIE d. 1858

Trading as:

LAURIE AND WHITTLE 1794-1812

WHITTLE AND LAURIE 1812-18

R. H. LAURIE 1818-c. 1903

Carried on business from about 1790, taking over the stock of Robert Sayer's publishing house in 1792-93. Their prolific output covered maritime atlases and charts as well as general atlases and sheet maps, including many revisions of works by Kitchin, Jefferys, Faden, Sayer and Bennett, and others.

• c. 1789 A New Universal Atlas (Thos Kitchin) 1796, 1799 Re-issued
• 1794 A New and Correct map of the British Colonies in North America 1823 Re-issued (R. H. Laurie)
• 1795 The East India Pilot (B. d'Apres de Mannevillette)
• 1795 A complete body of Ancient Geography (J. B. B. d'Anville) 1820 Re-issued
• 1796 A new and elegant Imperial Sheet Atlas 1798-1814 Re-issued
• 1797 The Oriental Pilot (B. d'Apre's de Mannevillette)
• 1798 Universal Atlas
• 1798 The Complete East India Pilot 1800, 1802, 1803, 1806, 1810 Re-issued
• 1799 North American Pilot (Thomas Jefferys/ Sayer and Bennett) Many revisions throughout nineteenth century
• 1801 African Pilot 1816 Re-issued
• 1801~4 New and elegant General Atlas
• 1805 (with Nathaniel Coltman ft. 1806-86) Welsh Atlas
• 1806 New Traveller's companion (8vo) 1809, 1811, 1813 Re-issued 1828 Re-issued (4t0)
• 1807 New and improved English Atlas (4to)

AARON ARROWSMITH 1750-I 823

AARON ARROWSMITH (son) ft. 1820-30

SAMUEL ARROWSMITH (son) d. 1839

JOHN ARROWSMITH (nephew) 1790-1873

Aaron Arrowsmith was the founder of one of the leading London map publishing houses in the early part of the nineteenth century. He came to London about 1770 from Durham, his birthplace, and worked as a surveyor for John Cary for whom he carried out some of the road surveys which subsequently appeared in Cari's Travellers' Companion in 1790. In that year he set up his own business in Long Acre and soon established an international reputation as a specialist in compiling maps recording the latest discoveries in all parts of the world. He produced, and constantly revised, a great number of large-scale maps, many issued singly as well as in atlas form. After his death the business passed to his sons, Aaron and Samuel, and later to his nephew John who maintained his uncle's reputation, becoming a founder member of the Royal Geographical Society. In all, the Arrowsmiths issued over 700 maps and it is possible, therefore, to quote only a few of their major works. Their maps of Australia and New Zealand were particularly noteworthy.

• 1790 Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection (11 sheets) Revisions to c. 1827
• 1795 New Discoveries in the Interior Parts of North America Numerous revisions to c. 1850
• 1796 Map of the United States of America Revisions to c. 1819
• 1798 Chart of the Pacific Ocean (9 sheets) Revisions to c. 1832
• 1798-1802 Maps of Europe, Asia and Africa
• 1804 America 1808, 1811 Re-issued
• 1806 A Pilot from England to Canton
• 1817 A new General Atlas (4to) c. 1830 Re-issued
• 1822 Atlas of Southern India
• 1825 (Aaron & Samuel) Outlines of the World
• 1829-30 (Aaron & Samuel) Arrowsmith's Comparative Atlas
• 1834 (John) The London Atlas of Universal Geography Numerous re-issues
• 1838 (John) Australia Numerous revisions and re-issues of this map and maps of the Australian States.

BENJAMIN BAKER fl. 1766-1824

• 1791-97 Universal Magazine

JOHN STOCKDALE 1749-1814

• 1794 The American Geography
• 1805 (with John Cary) New British Atlas
• 1806 Large-scale map of Scotland
• 1809 ......... England

WILLIAM HEATHER fl. 1765-1812

For nearly fifty years from 1765 William Heather was a noted publisher and dealer in charts at a time when London had become the most important centre of map production. Charles Dickens wrote in Dombey and Son of the 'Navigation Warehouse' and 'Naval Academy', under which names Heather's business address in Leadenhall St was known. The business was eventually taken over by J. W. None and continued to prosper until late in the nineteenth centurv.

• 1795-1801 A Pilot for the Atlantic Ocean
• 1801 Complete Pilot for the Northern Naigahon
• 1801 A new Set of Charts for harbours in the British Channel
• 1802 The New Mediterranean Pilot (Bremond and Michelot) 1814 Re-issued
• 1804-08 The Alaritime Atlas or seaman's complete pilot 1808 Re-issued
• 1805 East India Pilot
• 1811 The New North Sea Pilot, and others

JOHN LODGE fl. 1754-96

• c. 1795 Atlas of Great Britain & Ireland Maps originally issued in 1782 in the Political Magazine

CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER 1758-98

• 1798 A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and round the World, with Atlas

SAMUEL JOHN NEELE 1758-1824

JOSIAH NEELE (son) fl. 1826-45

• c. 1800 The Modern RoyalAtlas
• 1813 Minor Atlas

JOHN LUFEMAN fl. 1776-1820

• 1801 Select Plans of the Principal Cities of the World
• 1803 New Pocket Atlas and Geography of England and Wales: small circular maps (8vo) 1805, 1806 Re-issued
• c. 1809 Luffman's Geographical and Topographical Atlas
• 1815 Universal Atlas

CHARLES SNITH (and Son) fl. 1800-52

• 1804 Smith's New English Atlas (folio) 1806-64 Numerous re-issues, some reduced to 4to size
• 1806 England & Wales
• 1808 New General Atlas 1816 Re-issued
• 1826 New Pocket Companion to the Roads of England & Wales (8vo)

G. COLE and J. ROPER fl. 1801-10

• 1804-10 The Beauties of England and Wales - including town plans
• 1810 The British Atlas (4t0)

EDWARD MOGG fl. 1804-48

A publisher and engraver who specialized in maps for guides of London and its surroundings. He also issued road maps of England and Wales.

• c.1805-36 Twenty four miles round London A circular map which was issued in a number of editions
• 1817-22 A Survey of the Hgh Roads of England and Wales (4to)
• 1821-46 Forty five miles round London

ROBERT MILLER fl. 1810-21

• 1810 Miller's A new Miniature Atlas (12 mo) 1820, 1825 Re-issued by William Darton as Darton's New Miniature Atlas

JAMES WALLIS fl. 1810-20

• 1810 New Pocket Edition of the English Counties (12 mo) c. 1814 Re-issued
• 1811 Maps for Oddy's New General Atlas of the World (S. A. Oddy fl. 1810-11)
• 1812 New and Improved County Atlas/New British Atlas 1813 Re-issued
• 1820 (with W. H. Reid) The Panorama or Traveller's Instructive Guide

CAPTAIN THOMAS HURD c. 1757-1823

• 1811 Charts of the English Channel
• 1814 Charts of Australia and Tasmania

JOHN THOMSON (and Co.) fl. 1814-69

• 1814-28 A New general atlas of the World
• 1820-32 Atlas of Scotland

ROBERT ROWE C.1775-1843

• 1811-16 English Atlas 1829-1842 Re-issued as Teesdale's New British Atlas

CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS 1774-1814

In association with the explorer, George Bass (d. 1812 Flinders surveyed the coasts of New South Wales and was the first to circumnavigate Australia. His remarkably accurate surveys still form the basis of many Australian coastal charts.

• 1814 Atlas of Australia 1829 and other re-issues

WILLIAM SMITH 1769-1839

• 1815 A delineation of the strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland (14 sheets) - the first geological map of England and Wales
• 1819-24 Geological Atlas of England and Wales

JOHN WILLIAM NORIE 1772-1843

None, the most celebrated mathematician and hydrographer of his day, carried on business in Leadenhall Street, having taken over from William Heather as a publisher of naval books and dealer in maps and sea charts. The firm traded under the name of None and Wilson until about 1830 when None retired but it continued in business until the end of the century. None's books on navigation, particularly his Epitome of Practical N