394 CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 



Mr. William Harrison was early in the field with liis ' Early Maps of 

 Lancashire and tlieir Makers ' (1!)08), published in the ' Transa<?tions ' of the 

 Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian fe'ociety, and in the same year this society 

 published his ' Early Maps of Cheshire.' 



Mr. T. Chubb prepared a catalogi-ie of Wiltshire maps, published by the 

 Wiltshire Archftological and Natural History Society in 1911, a more sub- 

 stantial catalogue of Gloucestershire maps issued by the Bristol and Gloucester- 

 .shire Archctological Society in 1913, and in 1916 the Somersetshire Archaeo- 

 logical Society printed his catalogue of Somersetshive maps, which, having the 

 advantages of all the lists previously published, is remarkably complete. In 

 1918 the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archfeological Society's 

 ' Transactions ' contained a list of the maps of those two counties by Mr. J. F. 

 Curwen. This brief list exhausts our record of county catalogues, though 

 Miss Ethel Gerard has dealt with early Sussex maps (Library. 1915), Miss M. 

 Frost with early S'ussex Geological maps (in manuscript), and the present 

 writer witli East Riding maps (' Transactions'' East Riding Antiquarian 

 Society, 1912K but in these instances complete catalogues were not attempted. 



A careful perusal of these various compilations shows that the history 

 of British cartography can be divided roughly into throe periods, perhaps best 

 classified by Fordham as — 



1. 1579-1673 (Saxton to Blome). The early and archaic maps : Period of the 



Dutch School, and of the meridian of the Azores or Canaries. 



2. 1673-1794 (Seller to Cary). The modern and detailed maps with roads : 



Period of the English School, and of the meridian of London. 



3. 1794-1900. Period of the Ordnance Survey, and of the meridian of Greenwich, 



Witih regard to the earliest maps of the British Islands : these are usually 

 on vellum and preserved in one or other of our great libraries. Useful repro- 

 ductions of some of these are given in Richard Gough's ' British Topography, 

 or. An historical account of what has been done for illustrating the Topographical 

 Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland,' 1780, two valuable volumes which are 

 not used by students so much as they deserve to be. Gough's illustrations are 

 especiaUy serviceable, as the originals of some of his plates have since faded 

 to such an extent that portions are entirely useless. These mapg of the thirteenth, 

 fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, however, ave. principally remarkable for 

 their quaintness, and are (historically of service from the place-names they 

 record and the rough sketches of ecclesia.stical buildings, castles, and fortifica- 

 tions. But, as for illustrating any geographical or geological features, their 

 scale is too small and the conditions under which they were prepared were too 

 primitive. But they were the stepping-stones to greater cartographical 

 achievements. 



Tlie firit engraved map of England and Wales (1573) was by Humphrey 

 Lloyd, a Welshman ; the first county maps were produced by a Yorkshireman, 

 Christopher Saxton, who had special facilities for surveying granted to him 

 by Queen Elizabeth. The work was carried out between 1574 and 1579. Various 

 maps were engraved dm-ing this period, the whole being brought togetlier and 

 issued as an atlas, with title p&ge, etc. in 1579. 



Between 1584 and 1593 John Norden surveyed seven counties and issued 

 maps thereof. 



The next important series was by John Speed, said to have been a native 

 of Cheshire. He issued a ' History of Great Britaine ' for which fifty-four 

 county maps were prepared between 1608 and 1610. Tihc maps alone were pub- 

 lished in 1610 in an atlas entitled ' The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain.' 



Speed's maps were based upon Saxton's and Norden's. Copies of these were 

 issued by W. Kip and W. Holl, in the various editions of Camden's ' Britannia,' 

 and still further copiej appeared in numerous other works. Also, the remark- 

 able maps of English counties, printed in Holland, and often gorgeously 

 coloured, made tbeir aippearance. This was due to the anxiety oftwo pub- 

 lishers, Bl»6u and Jansson, in Amsterdam, vieing witli each other in the repro- 

 duction of an enormous atlas of the world. 



But in all these various maps the geographical details were essentially the 

 same, the same errors of spelling and of positions of townships were faithfully 



