By Richard A. Gardiner

CARTOGRAPHY has been defined in many ways by many people, but there can be no doubt that its main function is to provide a means of   visual communication on subjects which have in themselves some spatial elements. The cartographer’s products may be simple or complex, vital or of rela¬tively small importance, but all cartographers have the same aim, to transmit information to the viewer - the map user. Only a few map makers achieved lasting fame, but a great many have in the past played useful parts in the advancement of knowledge, even if, in a narrower sense, they contributed little to the advancement of their own profession. The same is true today, but unlike their fellows in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, many modern cartographers work in complete anonymity within comparatively large organisations. The identification of map makers is one of the aspects of the history of cartography which makes its study so interesting.

by Helen Wallis

A PUBLIC LIBRARY is the safest port; and of all public libraries the British Museum is on the most liberal plan, deficient only in the want of a sufficient fund to furnish itself with what it may not suit the wishes or the finances of many good collectors to bestow on it’.

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; 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 and by the late R. A. Skelton in his carto-bibliography, The County Atlases of the British Isles 1579-1703, 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.

By Tony Campbell

A recent and quite unexpected discovery in the archives of one of London’s leading livery companies has drawn together into a common context the activities of a number of chart-makers who worked beside the Thames in the seventeenth century. Enquiries, made some ten years ago at Drapers’ Hall (at the instigation of Professor Thomas Smith of Kansas University) revealed that these chart-makers were bound together into a system of master-apprentice relationships, spanning more than a century. Several of the names thrown up by this discovery were already known from the charts they had signed. John Burston, Nicholas Comberford, John Daniel, Joel Gascoyne, William Hack and John Thornton all had a firm place in the cartographic history of the period before the Drapers’ information came to light. What was now clear was that the stylistic similarities in their work were the result of direct training and not imitation.

by Antoine de Smet

Antoine de Smet discusses, in the light of recent research, the cartographical contribution of John Dee (1527-1608) during the period of English exploration of a Northerly route to the Far East. He examines the influence of the Louvain mathematicians on Dee, and suggests Dee’s own seminal role in the development of maps recording the new discoveries.

by Eran Laor

I BEGAN collecting maps in 1947. Since then, the collection has grown to a respectable size thanks to perseverance, good fortune and the help of friends. Quite often friends and acquaintances have asked what led me to choose this unusual hobby. I have since asked myself the same question and found two factors which explain my interest, nay, my craze for collecting maps: one direct, obvious reason and one hidden reaching far back into my past.

by Robert Stockwell

I am very glad to contribute to this Festschrift and in doing so, to pay tribute to Mr R. V. Tooley, and to some of his achievements. I have had the privilege of knowing Mr Tooley for over 45 years and my admiration and regard for him have grown with the passing years.

by Coolie Verner

ENGRAVED TITLE PLATES are found in atlases printed well into the eighteenth century. McKerrow [1] notes that such plates in books, especially in larger books, reached the peak of fashion in the early years of the seventeenth century but their use in atlases appears to have been common for a much longer time. The use of title-plates has not been studied extensively and collations of atlases seldom describe the plates or do much more than merely mention their existence when appropriate. [2] Since they are an integral and often crucial element in many atlases, the analysis of title-plates in relation to the text and maps should not be neglected for not only are they useful in determining the sequence of publication or gathering of an atlas but also they provide data on publishing practices in the map trade.