FROM PRIVATE TO OFFICIAL HYDROGRAPHY: THE CHARTS AND SAILING DIRECTIONS OF JOSEPH DESSIOU (1743–1822) AND HIS SON, JOSEPH FOSS DESSIOU (1769–1853)

Abstract

Joseph Foss Dessiou (1769–1853) is known as a compiler of charts and sailing directions during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and also for work for the Hydrographic Office in the latter part of his life, particularly on the computation of tides. It has not been widely appreciated that his father, Joseph Dessiou (1743–1822), was also a hydrographer. In addition his son, Joseph Foss Dessiou, junior (1792–1818), who drowned while surveying, became a third member of the family to enter the profession. This article is concerned with the work of the two older Dessious who both undertook surveys during their seagoing careers as masters and in later life turned to chart compilation for commercial publishers. The similarity in their names, and the overlap in their active lives, have resulted in some confusion between them. However an examination of all their work shows that their publishers appreciated the need to distinguish them and used the ascriptions Joseph Dessiou or J. Dessiou, and Joseph Foss Dessiou, or J. F. Dessiou correctly. When their work is attributed on this basis a logical pattern emerges of their interests and contacts during their working lives in private chart publishing. Their careers mirror the changes in chart production that took place between one generation and the next. The father started his career with a survey and chart of his home waters for local interests, a common eighteenth-century pattern, while the son ended his with employment in the Hydrographic Office and the inclusion of some of the charts he had drawn for commercial publication in the official Admiralty catalogue. During the transition from private to public chart production in the first two decades of the nineteenth century both father and son worked as chart compilers for rival private chart publishers. The Hydrographic Office at this time was still in its infancy. The Dessious’ charts and sailing directions are listed in the Appendix to this article, with full details and locations of examples of each.