This nineteenth-century map of the area around Collo, on the coast of Algeria, shows a “Ville projetée,” a proposed town. With a regular grid of streets, including a church, a market and several unidentified buildings, it looks orderly and regular, fitting into the comparatively flat and empty plain between the hills and the sea. To the north of the town is an area set aside for “manoeuvre et bivouac” – presumably a military site. It appears on a sea chart of the area, surveyed in 1869 and published in 1874.
The proposed town is represented on an area of empty land
As this is a navigational chart, most of it is taken up by sea, which is shown in some detail with many recordings of depths and the locations of rocks that could be a hazard to ships. There are two lighthouses, marked in hand colour on the otherwise monochrome map; the more remote one, at the end of the Djerda peninsula, is connected to Collo by a road along the coast. The map was surveyed under the direction of Ernest Mouchez, a captain commanding the ship Travailleur, in 1869, assisted by several of the ship’s officers, as part of a wider survey along the Algerian coast, producing many charts which were published by the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la marine (the French hydrographic office).
The full chart shows sea depths and lighthouses as well as land information
France had been taking control of coastal settlements in Algeria since 1830, so the plan to establish a new town at a useful port is unsurprising. As is often the case, the earliest detailed map of a coastal area appears on a navigational chart, as previously mentioned here. An earlier sea chart shows that the land was not uninhabited as it’s made to look here. This chart surveyed in 1851 (also a French survey, by C. Bouchet-Rivière) shows the same area with three small clusters of buildings, one identified as a mosque; there are roads, trees and cultivated land around them. This was not empty land.
An earlier chart makes clear that the land was already occupied
The modern layout of Collo suggests that the grid of streets was built as planned on the 1874 chart, presumably erasing the settlements that were there before. Subsequently the town seems to have developed more organically, as most of the surrounding streets follow a more irregular pattern. The earlier buildings closest to the sea may not have been affected, and there is still a mosque on the same site.
Algérie: plan de Collo / levé en 1869 par Mr. Mouchez. [Paris] : Dépôt des cartes et plans de la marine, 1874. B1 a.61/25 [17]
Plan du mouillage de Collo / levé et dressé en 1851 par M. C. Bouchet-Rivière. [Paris] : Dépôt général de la marine, 1852. B1 a.61/25 [18]
John Speed (1552-1629) was a celebrated cartographer whose career spanned Tudor and Stuart Britain, from a stable Elizabethan age to a more turbulent time under James I. Speed’s great work is his atlas ‘The Theatre of the empire of Great Britaine: presenting an exact geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland and the iles adoiyning…’ . It’s a work full of little vignettes and text to be found amongst his county maps, displaying both his love of history, the volatile times in which the atlas was made and the fact that it seems map-makers can’t abide any blank spaces in their work.
The title-page features five figures in British history, the rough and ready ancient Briton is followed by a Roman, Saxon, Dane then Norman, gradually getting grander with each passing historical phase.
There then follows a short introduction to the work, in which Speed states…And finally the Battels fought either by the forreaine or home-breed Conspirators, I have also added, Where we form under our own vines without fear may behold the prints of indured miseries, fealled with the blood of those times, to the losse of their lives, and liberites…
Here are a few examples of the historical decoration Speed includes in his county maps.
The first image comes from Sussex, and shows the Norman invasion fleet sailing towards Pemsey Harbour with ‘896 ships furnished for war’ in 1066. The famous outcome of the invasion was the Battle of Hastings, 14th October, 1066.
Speed tells us ‘And the 14 of October following, beyng saturdaye, nere Hastings…joyned in battle with Harold, King of England, whoe in ye fielde vallinatly fighting was there slaine by the shott of an arow into his braynes’.
It is fortunate that Speed includes text with these images, if he hadn’t some might be difficult to decipher, as is the case with this next image, from the ‘Hantshire’ county map.
The image shows the Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I, who in the mid 1100s was engaged in civil war with her cousin King Stephen over who should hold the crown. The image shows Maud (also called Matilda) escaping one battle in…well, let Speed explain ‘But success of warr altering Maud the Emperese to save her owne life adventured to throwe the host her enimie, layde in a coffin fayned to be dead, and soe was carryed in a horse litter from Winchester‘.
An unlikely looking Stonehenge appears in the Wiltshire county map, complete with tubular lintels and a hilly landscape. Speed tells us ‘This ancient monument was erected by Aurelius, surnamed Ambrious, King of the Brittaines, whose nobility in the raigne of Vortiger (his countryes scrouge) about ye yere of Christ 475 by treachy of ye Saxons, on a day of parleye were there slaughtered and their bodeyes there interred. In memory whereof this King Aurel caused this trophy to be set up‘.
Speed loved a battle scene, especially, judging by how many there are in his atlas, massed ranks of men wielding pikes. Here’s an image from his Norfolk county map, with text describing rebellions in 1381 and 1549.
This dramatic image is of a battle between Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, and James Butler Earl Ormerod against Edward, Earl of March, 1461, in Herefordshire. ‘Where in befor the battell was strok, appeared visibly in the firmament three sunnes; wihch after a while joyned all together and became as before‘. And, at the bottom, is this a glimpse of Speed at work? Surviving portraits, see below, suggest it could be.
Finally from Gloucestershire a double image, with the top picture showing the hand-to-hand combat between ‘Canut the Dane’ and Edmund Ironside following numerous battles between the two. With no outcome from the fight they ‘accorded to parte ye kingdome which they joyntly governed, till treason took away the lyfe of King Edmund and left ye Dane sole monarch’.
The second battle is from Tewkesbury, 1471, fought between King Edward IV and King Henry VI. This is the first appearance of guns in war in the atlas.
These are just a small selection of images in Speed’s remarkable atlas. A large number of the county maps have pictures of groups of men wielding swords, pikes or ancient rifles. These images reflect both Speed’s fascination with history and the nature of history in the British Isles up to 1611, which was largely one of conquest, invasion or fights for supremacy. Speed’s atlas was available in a number of different formats. Printing was done in black and white with options to have prints then coloured, either just outlining the county (cheaper) or the whole sheet fully coloured (more expensive). The atlas could also be bought bound or unbound. The Bodleian has a number of bound atlases, all in black and white, and some loose maps in colour.
Here’s a sheet covering Bedfordshire showing borders coloured (Gough Maps Bedfordshire 5, from a 1743 reprint including roads, not on Speed’s original) and then Oxfordshire in with the Oxford map in colour ((E) C17:49 (116), 1627 .
Both maps are an improvement on the achievements of the Tudor cartographer Christopher Saxton in both their detail and decoration. Speed included in all his county maps plans of the county towns, which would have been amongst the earliest, if not the earliest, of maps for each location.
Do these images add to the quality of the maps? No, not really, but they do add to the history of the particular county, giving a depth of knowledge to the place, an extra level of understanding, not found in other county maps both before and after.
John Speed The Theatre of Great Britaine: presenting an exact geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland and the iles adoiyning…’ 1611. Map Res 74.
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