Maps, charts and atlases in Britain, 1690–1830

Abstract

The bulk of the map-seller's trade in Britain in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was concerned with the production of atlases, maps and charts of other countries and seas. On the home front, aside from urban mapping, estate surveys, and thematic mapping such as Milne's land-use map of the capital, A plan of the cities of London and Westminster (1800), it is arguable that the four most important genres of domestic map-publishing at this time were county maps, county atlases, road books and maps, and hydrographic charting. Original surveys for roads and county maps were rarely undertaken in the late seventeenth century. The years following the Restoration were marked by unsuccessful projects to produce new maps of the English counties. By 1830, private investment and enterprise in carrying out original survey work had resulted in the whole of England, and most of Scotland and Ireland, being covered in published mapping at the one-inch scale.