By Sarah Tyacke

ENGLISH cartographic publication, even at one of its most prolific periods between 1660 and the first decades of the eighteenth century, has left few traces but the maps themselves. One looks in vain, for example, for an inventory of an English map-seller’s stock as comprehensive as that published by Professor Cor Koeman for the Dutch globe-maker Gerard van Keulen; [1] an inventory which reveals all the sizes of globes sold, and the method of making and selling them. In part this explains the absence of any systematic study of the English map trade. A great deal of work however has been done on various aspects of map publication during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably by Professor E. G. R. Taylor in The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England [2] and by the late R. A. Skelton in his carto-bibliography, The County Atlases of the British Isles 1579-1703, [3] in which he laid the foundations for a study of the seventeenth-century map trade. Leona Rostenberg too has considered the careers and output of the seventeenth-century printsellers, while many others have contributed, through bibliographical notes and articles, to our understanding of particular map projects.

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The primary source for a history of the map trade is of course the maps, atlases and globes, which survive. With careful examination, they reveal a great deal about the methods of production and sale. It is often possible to find a sequence of maps, all in different states, pulled from the same plate over a period of years, indicating quite clearly the common practice of map-sellers of purchasing old copperplates, revising and selling them over a great number of years. [4] For example, Philip Lea in 1694 introduced roads on a copy of Christopher Saxton’s wall-map of 1589; a copy first published in 1644 by Thomas Jenner, and sold by Lea until his death in 1700. What can be inferred from the maps themselves can on occasions be corroborated and amplified by the evidence of the map-sellers’ catalogues, and advertisements placed in newspapers. For the period 1655-1720 [5] twenty-nine map-sellers’ catalogues have been traced, many discovered by the late R. A. Skelton. For the same period 412 advertisements [6] about maps survive in the bi-weekly newspaper the London Gazette, which had at that time a virtual monopoly of news. The frequency of the newspaper’s publication and its consequent publicity value to map-sellers was well appreciated by them. John Seller (fl 1658-d 1697) chartmaker, atlas and map publisher makes this quite clear, in a proposal of 1681 for the projected Atlas Anglicanus [7] when he adds to the atlas’s description, ‘Notice of the Maps to be included in the Atlas will be given in the Gazet as they are successively compleated, to the end they may receive an Account of the Nobility & Gentry of each county.’ About 1704, the probable circulation figure for the Gazette was put at 6,000 per issue in a ‘proposal to Increase the Revenue of [the] Stamp Office’, [8] which compared favourably with its nearest rival the Post Boy which had a probable readership of 3,000.

It seems hardly surprising that with the exception of three print and map-sellers, already well-established by 1660 (Peter Stent (ft 1641-d 1665), Robert Walton (fl 1647-d 1688) and Thomas Jenner (fl 1618-d 1673)), all those known to have published maps during the period 1665-1720 did advertise their new maps in the London Gazette, and later in those other newspapers which appeared at the turn of the eighteenth century. The Gazette sequence of advertisements, printed bi-weekly, provides an indication not only of the amount but also of the frequency of map production. William Berry (fl 1671-1708), known to contemporaries as the ‘English Sanson’ for his publications of English copies of the maps of the French cartographer Guillaume Sanson (d 1703), advertised over ten years, thirty-three two-sheet maps of different parts of the world. Most, that is twenty-five, were advertised between 1679 and 1685, usually at intervals of three or four months. The publishing activity of all the map-sellers for the whole period can be gauged to some extent by looking at the numbers of advertisements in both Term Catalogues and the London Gazette. About 1672, with the commencement of the Third Dutch War, the number of advertisements rose sharply. The French conquests in the Netherlands were recorded in a number of topical sheet maps published by John Seller in August 1673, and Robert Morden in September 1673. Then in October 1674 Robert Morden with William Berry issued a comprehensive cartographic guide, containing ‘The Whole seat of the Wars’. While by no means the greater part of a map-seller’s stock or publication was necessarily immediately topical, certainly the intermittent warfare on the continent and such events as the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, provided a continual incentive for the map-sellers to compete for customers. The peaks of map advertisement coincided with militarily active periods. About 1712, the previous pattern of map publication altered, with advertisements becoming fewer on the eve of the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713. In 1689, twenty-one advertisements were placed in the London Gazette, but by 1714 only two were placed. At this later date, however, other newspapers were competing with the London Gazette. Even so, taking into account those additional advertisements entered in the Post Boy, Daily Courant and Evening Post only fourteen in all were placed of which seven were for one publication. [9]

Unlike book-publishing, which was conducted by booksellers and stationers, map publication was undertaken by a variety of people. In part this may be attributable to the versatility of the map which could serve as book-illustration or house-decoration besides geographical record. Those who undertook to publish maps and atlases were often booksellers whose historical, scriptural, and geographical works required map illustrations. Richard Blome (fl 1659-d 1705) stationer and bookseller was the first publisher to undertake an atlas of England and Wales since the publication of John Speed’s Theatre in 1611. In 1668 he undertook ‘A Geographical Description of England, Scotland and Ireland; which for the further Utility and Adornement hereof shall be added a Map of every county of England; besides several general ones’. [10] It was in fact, as Bishop William Nicolson in 1696 remarked ‘a most entire piece of theft out of Camden and Speed’. [11] Blome had wide publishing concerns, but took special interest in topographical works which required maps. He seems to have been known by contemporaries (certainly by Jane Hilton with whom he lived for many years) as a ‘cosmographical printer’, [12] and apparently undertook in 1696 a ‘Description or Survey of London and Westminster . . . the work to be Illustrated with great variety of Useful Ichnographical Maps of the Wards and Parishes’. [13] These ward maps were engraved for Richard Blome but were eventually published after his death, in John Strype’s A Survey of the Cities of London & Westminster . . . 1720. Blome’s other business activity was that of arms-painter for funereal [14] and other solemn occasions. Apart from the last activity, the style of his career is reminiscent of his contemporary the bookseller John Ogilby (b 1600-d 1676) whose forays into surveying and map production were more successful than Blome’s.