It’s rare for a general purpose map to give attention to what is under the ground as well as to what is on the surface. This map shows the county of Akershus in Norway, centred around Christiania (now Oslo), in the eighteenth century. The map was drawn by Johann Baptist Homann, a largely self taught cartographer and engraver, in 1729. The area is described by a Latinized version of its name, Aggerhusiensis. About a quarter of the map is taken up by an illustration of a mine, with the surface cut away to show the internal workings.
The map appears here in a general atlas, titled Atlas geographicus maior, published in Nuremberg by the heirs of Homann in 1798. The company was founded by Homann in 1702; he built a successful map publishing business, both creating his own maps and publishing those of others. He was succeeded by his son Johann Christoph Homann, who died young, and the company passed to friends, and connections by marriage, who continued the company as Homännische Erben (Homann Heirs). It lasted into the mid-nineteenth century and issued over 900 maps, a remarkably long run. The atlas, as its title suggests, is very large, containing 152 maps, and covering most of the world apart from Germany. A second volume of 124 maps concentrates on Germany alone. There is extensive geographical text in German, but the maps are mainly in Latin.
Activities in and around the mine are shown in some detail, providing an interesting view of early mining processes. There are ladders to move between levels and a pulley system, and a furnace in the background, perhaps for the iron working associated with the area. Near the top, a stream has been diverted to turn a water wheel.
There is nothing specifically Christmassy about this map, but somehow it felt appropriate to this time of year. Perhaps it’s the combination of the clearing of paths through the snow, the little fir trees, the pale blue wash colour (a shade normally used for water, and an unusual choice for land) and the many figures working away underground like Santa’s elves.
[Edited 16/12/25 to remove reference to coal mining, as it is not clear that this is what is being mined.]
Tractus Norwegiae Danicus. Magnam diecoseos Aggerhusiensis / partem sistems editus a Johanni Baptistae Homanni … Noribergae Anno 1729. In Atlas geographicus maior. Norimbergae: Homannianis heredibus, [1798]. Map Res. 40
Held within the collections here at the Bodleian is a green scrapbook. There’s no clue inside about when the material was gathered together, the only information we have about the material comes from the shelfmark, Wood 276 b. The Wood tells us this is part of a donation of over 900 books left to the Ashmolean Museum, then transferred to the Bodleian, by Anthony Wood (1632-1695), an antiquarian and collector mainly of material relating to Oxford.
The scrapbook features a range of different items; starting with a number of World and country maps by cartographers such as John Speed and Abraham Ortelius the volume also includes plans of the hot and cold baths in Bath, portraits of Oxford dons and religious pamphlets. At roughly halfway through is a map of Oxford, probably the most frustrating we have in the collection.
Oxforde as it now lyeth fortified by his Ma.ties forces an. 1644 is a strange map on a number of levels. Its mixture of scales is off-putting, a large Oxford looms at the top of the Thames running down past smaller representations of Abingdon (‘Abbington’), Wallingford and Reading (‘Reding’) like the head of a carnivorous plant and then there’s the depiction of city itself, with soldiers between the city and siege walls larger than the buildings inside the city. And what to make of the note written in the bottom corner, ‘This map is made very false’, possibly by Wood himself. Not what you want to read when looking for accuracy.
The reason for the map’s overall design is easy to explain. Oxford was a key location in the Civil War, soon after the start in 1642 King Charles I was forced out of London by Parliamentary forces and settled in the city, taking over, along with his Queen and entourage, a number of colleges. This move proved disastrous; resources such as college silver and lead from roofs were stripped and melted down for coins and bullets, the amount of people coming into the city led to over-crowding and a number of dangerous fires and, worse of all, with the King in town the city quickly came under siege. Abingdon, Wallingford and Reading were important towns on the Thames, vital for the success of the Royalists during the War for their strategic value but by the time the map was made all three had either fallen to Parliamentary forces or soon would do so.
It is because of this way of showing Oxford in relation to the three towns that causes the problem with the map, and the reason for the handwritten note at the bottom. All existing maps of the city prior to the war had south at the top, but by including the towns to the south Oxford needed to be shown with a north orientation. To achieve this our unnamed cartographer has taken an earlier, southern orientated, map of the city and seemingly flipped round the orientation. So now, without looking too closely, all seems ok, with the two largest features on the map, the castle and Magdalen Bridge, to the west and east respectively of the city, as they should be.
We’re pretty confident we know how this has been achieved. The earlier map mentioned is the map of Oxford from John Speed’s county map of Oxfordshire, 1611, we know this because the Civil War map uses Speed’s legend and key to identify buildings. Speed has south at the top and it looks like to change this around our cartographer has held a mirror up to the edge of the map and reproduced what he sees. Here’s Speed from his 1611 map, next to what you would see in a mirror.
The problem with doing this though is the flip in orientation only works horizontally. Everything inside the city walls has stayed where they originally were so everything is now upside down. Take for example T, which is at the top of both Speed and the Civil War maps. The T is Christ Church college, which is on the road leading south out of the city on your left as you go past it, on the map it’s both on the wrong side of the road and in the north. The question is, has this been done deliberately, is this an attempt by besieged forces to confuse the enemy? This seems unlikely, Speed’s maps were well known so it’s doubtful that many would have been fooled by the deception. Which leaves one other suggestion. This is just a badly made map, hastily put together using a method not properly thought through. ‘Very false’ indeed.
Anthony Wood is one of those historical characters that more is known about his ways than his achievements. A born and bred Oxford man he grew up during the Civil War, living through the siege and fires that entailed. Wood produced a number of histories of the city and the university, one of which, the Historia et Antiquitates Universtatis Oxoniensis included what is regarded as the best portrayal of the city, David Loggan’s beautifully engraved map of 1675, which includes some of the Civil War defences (and has south at the top!)
Wood often worked with the antiquarian and collector John Aubrey who described Wood, who by this time liked to be called Anthony à Wood, as ‘a shiftless person, roving and maggoty-headed and sometimes a little better than crazed’. Others were less complimentary with one stating that he ‘was always looked upon in Oxford as a most egregious, illiterate, dull blockhead, a conceited, impudent coxcomb’.
An old letter found at the bottom of the slipcase containing a copy of Andrew Bryant’s Map of the county of Oxford from actual survey, published in 1824, sheds some interesting light on attitudes to history and the value (or otherwise) of old documents. The letter was written from one local historian to another. H.E. Salter wrote many books on the history of Oxford through the first half of the twentieth century, made a map that reconstructed the medieval city, and was one of the editors of the Victoria County History for Oxfordshire. He wrote the letter when sending, as a gift, his copy of Bryant’s map to Edmund Greening-Lamborn, a highly regarded head teacher and largely self-educated local historian who had published many articles and several books on local history and genealogy of Oxfordshire. Greening-Lamborn also wrote on other subjects, and the two men had worked together on archaeological reports. Salter remarks that “Old printed maps of the county are of little use …”, a statement that will no doubt shock many readers of this blog, although he does acknowledge that they are “nice to look at”.
The southern portion of the map. A detached portion of the county is shown as an inset.
Bryant’s map of Oxfordshire is indeed nice to look at, as well as historically informative. However, a closer reading of the letter might lead us to absolve Salter of a dismissive attitude to old maps. Salter clearly had a value for history, but he mentions the Ordnance Survey maps specifically; these covered Oxfordshire from the mid-1830s, and their accuracy and reliability meant that researching any period after they appeared is made much easier.
The letter carries no year, but is addressed from Broad Oak, in Sturminster Newton, so dates from after Salter retired to Dorset in 1942 when he was nearly 80; he died there in 1951. He remarks in the letter that “I am sending you something that I shall never need again.” There is a certain poignancy in the suggestion that, in old age and retirement, he wanted to pass the map to a younger and more active owner.
Salter’s letter to Greening-Lamborn
Bryant’s map is beautifully engraved and accurately surveyed; the copy concerned is from the latest known state of the map, which had some minor revisions made soon after its first publication in 1824. It is enhanced by hand colouring; Salter comments on the usefulness of the individually coloured hundreds, and it marks many minor features of historical interest such as mills, ferries, the names of farms, toll bridges, and minor settlements.
The map shows Oxford at the very south of the county. Historically, the River Thames was the county boundary.
The map reached the Bodleian as part of the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, which in fact includes a considerable amount of less ephemeral material, like this map. Whether Johnson ever noticed the letter is unknown; it was firmly wedged into the bottom of the slipcase and had to be extracted using a certain amount of force and small plastic ruler.
For more on the life and work of Edmund Greening-Lamborn, see this article by the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques scheme.
Map of the county of Oxford from actual survey / by A. Bryant. London : A Bryant, 1824. J. Maps 4
In 1827, James Gardner published a map of the main roads of central Europe: New post map of Central Europe, exhibiting the great and secondary routes with the various stations where the relays are obtained … the whole forming a complete posting companion for the continental tourist. ‘Post’ roads were the main communication links across countries, the routes for carrying both mail and passengers in stage coaches, with regular stops to change horses. The map includes eastern England, with sea routes to the continent, and covers Europe as far south as northern Italy and as far east as Hungary. The map first appeared in 1827 and was reissued with updates for a few years thereafter; the Bodleian holds copies from 1828 and 1830.
The 1828 edition of the map
The map has an attractive design, with hand colouring to show international borders, clear symbols for categories of roads and settlements, and distances given in ‘posts’. It is dissected and mounted on cloth, enabling it to be folded in a leather case for carrying when travelling. The geographic coverage is enhanced by narrow strip maps down each side, one of western Italy (including major cultural centres such as Florence and Rome) and one of the River Rhine. Top centre is a detailed map of the ‘Route of the Simplon’, a high pass in Switzerland, newly improved in the early years of the nineteenth century by Napoleon; this is beautifully engraved by William Palmer, showing the mountains and in a different style to the rest of the maps.
The small inset map of the Simplon pass was engraved separately by William Palmer
The identity of the engraver of the main map has an intriguing story attached. The 1828 edition has his name clearly marked in the lower margin: ‘engraved by W. R. Gardner.’ The updated version a couple of years later has his name erased. It’s not uncommon for erasures of this sort to be made to printing plates, perhaps if a new publisher took them over and reissued the work, but it’s rare for it to happen quickly and when the work was still being issued by the original publisher (who may in this case have been related to the engraver, although no relationship has been identified). The explanation may well be that the engraver’s name had been disgraced.
The engraver’s name in the lower margin, fro the 1828 version of the mapIn later editions Gardner’s name has been removed, although faint traces can be seen
An advertisement in the London Gazette of September 1829 invites the creditors of William Gardner, ‘engraver and printer .. late of number 13, Harper Street, Red Lion Square’, to a meeting with the assignee of the estate to agree on a method of recovering their money; they are invited, amongst other proposals, to assent or dissent to ‘giving up to the Bankrupt’s wife such part of the household furniture, estate and effects, for the use of herself and family, as he shall think fit’; it was clearly an unfortunate situation. Bankruptcy wasn’t the whole story though; Gardner was found to have fled the country for New York with thousands of pounds in forged bills, taking one of his four children with him; one wonders about the fate of his wife and the remaining children left behind. He is described in British map engravers (quoting a contemporary report) as having ‘a very prepossessing exterior and agreeable manner’ – a charming conman, perhaps. It’s easy to understand James Gardner wishing to erase William Gardner from his map, even – or perhaps especially – if they were related.
New post map of Central Europe, exhibiting the great and secondary routes with the various stations where the relays are obtained … London: Published by James Gardner, Agent for the sale of the Ordnance Surveys &c., [1828]. Allen LRO 299
New post map of Central Europe, exhibiting the great and secondary routes with the various stations where the relays are obtained … London: Published by James Gardner, Agent for the sale of the Ordnance Surveys &c., [1830] Hope III.Cc.9
Cóvens & Mortier’s Atlas nouveau is a beautiful thing: a re-engraved copy of the work of the French cartographer Guillaume de l’Isle, it was published in Amsterdam from the 1730s onwards in several editions, expanding from a early version with around 50 maps to a much larger volume. This copy, dating from around 1745, contains 130 hand-coloured maps and occupies two large volumes. A surprise bonus at the back of the atlas is a collection of other material, maps, illustrations and text, relating largely to English history. This is unrelated to the Atlas Nouveau but of similar date, and was presumably bound in by a previous owner of the atlas.
Of particular interest is A new map of North America wherein the British Dominions in the continent of North America, and on the islands of the West Indies, are carefully laid down from all the surveys, hitherto made, and the most accurate accounts and maps lately publish’d. This is copied (with acknowledgement) from the work of a French cartographer, Louis Delarochette, engraved by the highly regarded Thomas Kitchin, and published in London by John Bowles and Son. The general tone of the map is, to be blunt, anti-French. The title continues: Also the French encroachments on the English Provinces particularly described, being an improvement on D’Anville’s, Popple’s and other maps of North America. A section below the ‘Explanation’ highlights ‘The encroachments made by the French on the British Colonies,’ with colour coding. There are little text panels across the map, some of which refer to the French ‘pretending’ that Louisiana has a greater extent than it really does, while another claims that they ‘by a piece of chicanery would reduced the limits of Acadia ceded to the crown of Great Britain.’
The title cartouche is decorated with two Native Americans, wearing elaborate headdresses and jewellery but little else. The presence of the Native American inhabitants is acknowledged on the map itself; there are the names of many tribes across the map, ‘Indian villages’ are marked, and there are descriptions such as ‘Iroquois hereditary country,’ or mention of a treaty between Great Britain and the Six Nations.
There is much other detailed information as well: mountains, rivers, settlements, natural resources, major roads and even the circuitous route taken by ships through the Gulf of Mexico to avoid the trade winds.
The map is undated, but gives an account of the taking of Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) in November 1758, making it likely that this version at least dates from 1759 or later. And it predates 1763; there were numerous states of the map, with the information being updated, and after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which brought an end to the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France (also known as the French and Indian War) the tone of the map changes completely. The second part of the title is rephrased as Also extracts from the definitive Treaty of Peace in 1763, relative to the cessions made to his Britannick Majesty on the continent of North America, and to the partition agreed on for the islands. Negative comments about the French are removed, and replaced with extracts from the peace treaty; the reference to encroachments at the bottom of the Explanation is erased entirely. The updated, peaceful version can be seen on the website of the Library of Congress.
A new map of North America wherein the British Dominions in the continent of North America, and on the islands of the West Indies, are carefully laid down from all the surveys, hitherto made, and the most accurate accounts and maps lately publish’d. : also the French encroachments on the English Provinces particularly described, being an improvement on D’Anville’s, Popple’s and other maps of North America. / This map is laid down by Delarochette and engraved by Tho: Kitchin. London: Printed for John Bowles and Son at the Black Horse in Corhnhill, [1759?]. Map Res. 39
Leo Belgicus has to be one of the most famous, as well as pictorially pleasing, of all maps. What makes this map so interesting is its direct relationship with the events taking place at the time it was made, and how these events are reflected in the map.
Novissima, et accuratissima Leonis Belgici, seu Septemdecim Regionum Descriptio, from Atlas minor sive Geographia, compendiosa in qua orbis terrarium… c.1650. Map Res 34
The first version of the map was printed in 1583, these later editions were published by the famous family of Dutch cartographers, the Visschers, with the first by Claes Janszoon around 1611. This version is by his son Nicolaus, in an atlas whose title translates rather wonderfully as ‘Atlas minor, or Geography, a compendious account of the world’. That the group of nations know as the Low Countries can be mapped in the shape of a lion was a convenient way to show a group of 17 provinces when over half of those provinces had a lion on their shields, as can be seen along the top of the map.
The lion though can also be seen to symbolize war, and power, and it was to feature regularly on maps during the 80 Years War, a conflict between the Northern Provinces and the ruling power in the area, the Spanish Empire. We can tell this map has been printed during a short truce in the fighting between 1609 and 1621 because the sword held by the lion is sheathed, and held downwards. Maps made either side of the truce show the sword held high, ready for action.
The map, symbolic in itself with the form of a lion representing the outline of the countries as well as the individual provinces, is full of smaller symbolic references. Just above the base of the tail two women, representing the northern and southern half of the Netherlands, sit on an old man, ‘d’Oude twist,’ who represents the conflict that has hopefully now passed. Around the lion are pastoral scenes, showing the countryside at peace, with harvests gathered and villages and towns under repair or expansion (‘t’vergrooten der steden’ means the ‘enlargement of the cities’). In one of the stranger parts of the map a putto, a winged figure often found around cartouches on maps, has rather ungainly fallen out of heaven and has dropped a number of concepts in the shape of various associated objects, so the candle sticks represent wealth (‘rijckdom’), while the other objects symbolize art and science (hour glass, cross-staff, lead weight for reading depths at sea and so on), all for the benefit of a nation at peace.
The atlas, in 2 volumes, is a beautiful example of Dutch cartography during the golden age of the seventeenth century. The atlases are full of regional and country maps as well as maps of the heavens; it even has a page at the end full of different types of fortifications and instruments of war.
Many pages have elaborate cartouches, the title page gives a taste of the glories within. Here Geography, one of the muses, draws the globe while Poseidon stands by. Cybele, with her crown made of city walls, measures the earth while a lion stands by.
There’s a second Leo, in the atlas. Despite the raised sword which would suggest war this is a celebratory lion. The map was made in 1648, a year of treaties and negotiation finishing with the Dutch gaining independence from Spain.
Black Sash was a South African human rights organisation founded by liberal white women in Johannesburg in 1955 as a non-violent resistance organisation. It was so-named as the women wore black sashes on their protest meetings. Their initial campaigns focused on anti-apartheid issues such as forced removal of voters from the electoral roll, and the adoption of Pass Laws. One way of getting this message across was to create maps showing the realities of the Apartheid system and to send them to organisations throughout the World. The Map Department here at the Bodleian was recently contacted by some of the people involved in Black Sash, the Guinness family, with this intriguing message:
The map includes detailed notes and statistical tables
“In 1977 I was temporarily resident in South Africa. In the autumn of 1977 the Black Sash organisation arranged for the production of a map, detailing the forced removal of indigenous people to their so-called Homelands. The intention was to mail copies of the map to institutions, academic and political, worldwide. It was believed that the South African authorities would try to confiscate these maps. They were, therefore, rolled up, like calendars, hand addressed and stamped, as if they were Christmas presents. My family picked a small number every day and posted them, one by one, in letter boxes round Johannesburg. At least one would have been addressed to the Bodleian. Can you tell me whether you ever received a copy/ copies of the map? If so, would it be possible to see it.”
Much to our delight, we were able to find the map posted to the Library all those years ago, which according to the accession stamp on the back was catalogued on 6 March 1978. Originally, the map was added to the collection at Rhodes House Library, but was transferred to the Weston Library in 2014 (with the rest of that collection).
The family conveyed their delight by email, and a visit was scheduled, three generations of the Guinness family visiting the Library. Back in the 1970s, the Guinness children hand-wrote the envelopes, and posted each map individually from different post boxes in and around Johannesburg. On arrival at the Library they were introduced to us as the “political activists”.
The inset shows where people were forcibly moved
Along with the map, we were able to display a later map, somewhat more sophisticated and professionally produced, yet somehow lacking the excitement and subterfuge conveyed by the original. We also called up a number of issues of the journal ‘Black Sash’ which thrilled the family as they recognised many of the names featured within each issue, and were keen to share their impressions of this visit with those individuals, many of whom they had lost contact with.
Black Sash was able to disband in 1994 with Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and the unbanning of the African National Congress.
A land divided against itself, a map of South Africa showing the African homelands and some of the mass removals of people which have taken place, also conditions in some of the resettlement areas / compiled by Barbara Waite. [Johannesburg] : Black Sash, 1977. 610.41 t.2
We’ve written about Stalingrad before, maps showing different aspects of a battle which was a turning point in the Second World War, but a recent donation of maps to the library are of sufficient importance to warrant a new piece to add to these blogs on thematic mapping and name changes.
The maps are German army maps, mostly at 1:1,000,000 scale but almost all have manuscript annotations added to show the progress, positions and then retreat of the Italian 8th Army. The area covered is mainly northern Ukraine, generally from Crimea across to Stalingrad and north as far as Minsk. Front-lines, troop deployment, strength of remaining forces, depots and command centres are all shown, and as most of the maps are dated progress day by day can often be plotted.
German, Italian and Romania advances towards Stalingrad, 15th July 1942 (?), C40:6 (181) 1a
These maps are of historical importance. As well as Italian forces armies from Croatia, Hungary and Romania were on the Eastern Front but the main focus on Stalingrad has mostly been on the vast number of German troops that fought on the Eastern Front. These maps will go some way to shine a light on the other forces involved on the Axis side.
Soviet counterattacks and Stalingrad pocket, circa 9th Jan 1943, C40:6 (181) 1a
The maps are also amongst the most poignant in the collection. These maps show Axis forces advance from the Don with front-lines moving closer to the Volga before coming to a stop at Stalingrad. Then, with the launch of Operation Uranus in November 1942 Soviet forces push back Axis forces, and the front-line moves back towards the Don, the pocket around Stalingrad slowly diminishes along with the numbers of troops shown behind the retreating lines, until finally the pocket disappears and the words ‘Resti 6th Army‘ are crossed out in red pencil (Resti means ‘remains’ in Italian).
Stalingrad pockets, circa 13th Jan and 30th Jan, 1943. C40:6 (181) 1a
Maps such as these are rare in libraries such as the Bodleian. By their nature annotated maps made during war-time are often lost or irreparably damaged in the confusion of battle, especially when that battle involves a retreat such as the one involving the troops featured on the maps. We’re lucky to have such an important collection come to Oxford.
In Robert Frost’s poem Mending wall two neighbours walk the shared boundaries of their properties, checking on the condition of the wall separating their land and making repairs where necessary. At one point the narrator teases his neighbour on the need for the wall, “My apple trees will never come across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him”. The neighbour replies, simply and memorably, “Good fences make good neighbours”.
Frost loves the phrase so much that it’s repeated again, to close the poem*, and I’m reminded of this when looking at these two estate maps, of Down Manor from 1718 and Mowden Hall, 1762, both in Essex. Both are typical examples of an estate plan, are in manuscript form and show the holdings and field names of each estate (with sizes in acres, roods and perches). The connection with Frost comes with both showing boundaries in two different colours, according to ownership and according to responsibility of maintenance, to mark the outer boundaries of each estate. Any boundary dispute in the future would be easily settled with reference to the map. The importance of boundary fences are obvious, the need to keep animals out of certain fields and in others, as a way of separating good land from not so good and as a way of marking the limit of your land from your neighbour. The Down Manor map nicely calls the fencing surrounding the property ‘Out fencing’.
A by-product of this in both maps is that those neighbours surrounding both Down Manor and Mowden Hall are named, so for instance we can see that the wonderfully named Mr Grump owed land to the south-east of Mowden Hall and the equally well-named Thomas Clutterbuck owed land just north of Down Hall, giving us a connection with those alive at the time the map was made.
Estate maps show the land owned by the local manor or estate, and are almost always privately commissioned works, which often lead to beautiful one-off maps such as the Down Manor map. These maps are historically important as they give a pre-enclosure view of the landscape and a record of who farmed this landscape. One of the most famous of all the estate maps is held in the Bodleian, of Laxton in Nottinghamshire, from 1635. We tell its story here and we’ve blogged previously about estate maps here, here, and here.
Most of the field names are explanatory, sometimes just size or use (Gravel Pit Field, Calves Pasture and so on) but some are more interesting. Great and Little Hungerdown in the Mowden map would suggest a poor field for growing crops on and needing much manure and feeding to make viable, while Bury Mead is a field near a moat or fortified building and Rushey pasture would be a poorly drained field, not much good for growing crops but ok for growing rushes, useful in chair making and hatching.
The Mowden map was first surveyed in 1723 by Daniel Halls, who is described in a dictionary of surveyors at the Bodleian as a Philomath in the year he surveyed the map. A Philomath is someone who loves learning. Halls’ map was then copied, the term used on the map is ‘diminish’d’, by Edward John Eyre in 1762. The owner of Mowden Hall, Brabezon Aylmer, also owed the paper mill near but outside his main land-holding. We can tell he owns the mill because the land included with the mill is delineated by the yellow line that the legend tells us ‘that the fence in the outward bounds of this map where it belongs to this estate is coloured with yellow…’.
A true map of the lands belonging to Mowden Hall together with a paper mill as they are situate lying and being in the several parishes of Ulting, Hatfield, Boreham & Little Baddow, Essex, belonging to Brabzon Aylmer, esq…1762. MS C17:28 (40)
Description of the Manor of Down Hall, situate and lying in the Parish of Rayleigh in the County of Essex. Containing altogether 170 acres, 1 rood and 2 perches being parcel of the possession of Edw. Downs Esq. and herein particularly measured in the year of our Lord 1718 by Will. Cole. 1718. MS C17:28 (88)
The Bodleian Library’s catalogues have a complicated history. New acquisitions are of course catalogued online and appear straight away on the online catalogue, SOLO. However, the collections have been acquired over the centuries and earlier records were made on index cards, in printed volumes and even as handwritten records. Over the years, these earlier records have been converted into online records, but the information is not always as comprehensive as it would be if we acquired the item now and catalogued it to modern standards.
This is what library catalogues looked like in the old days, kids
So when we occasionally discover that we have two duplicate records for the same thing, and that it’s been in our collections for over 200 years, this isn’t particularly surprising and can usually be tidied up quickly. A recent case proved more intriguing. We appeared to have 2 separate records for an eighteenth-century map of London. There was one record for 3 copies of the map, and another for a single copy – surely a mistake? The map is a reproduction of one made by John Leake in 1667 after the Great Fire of London. (The need for detailed surveys for reconstruction after the fire led to the making of many maps, and indeed started the map-making career of the famous John Ogilby, who made and published a detailed survey with his step-grandson William Morgan). Leake’s map was reproduced over 50 years later by the engraver George Vertue, reduced in size and with embellishments such as views of notable buildings and streets before the fire.
The red line shows the extent of the area damaged by the Great Fire
A dotted line, highlighted in red, shows the extent of the area affected, and a cartouche carries a Latin inscription by George Vertue explaining that the map is a memento of London before the fire, and is dedicated to the Society of Antiquaries of London (who published this version of the map in 1723).
The cartouche represents a ruined fragment of wall
So far this is an interesting map, but there is an associated mystery, for the two versions of it turn out to be not quite the same. In one (presumably earlier) the lower border of the map runs through the River Thames, a little way from the shore. The names of docks, wharves and so on extend into the river. The plate mark (where the edge of the copper printing plate pressed into the paper) can be seen about 0.5 cm below the edge of the map border.
The original version of the map
The second copy is different. Although the map is almost identical, and certainly printed from the same plate, it appears that the plate has been trimmed. The lower border of the map has moved up a little and some of the writing has had to be shifted, while the words ‘The River Thames’ overlap the map border. A similar compression has happened at the top of the map. The plate mark is now only just outside the border of the map.
The later version in which the map’s lower border has been moved up
This is extremely unusual. It was common for map plates to be reused and for changes to be made to them; the map might be updated with new information, or the plate sold and the new publisher’s details added, for example. But we have rarely, if ever, seen a case where the plate was cut down to a smaller size. It is uncertain why this was done, but it’s notable that 2 of our 3 copies of the ‘reduced’ version of the map are printed on paper only just large enough to accommodate the map image. It may be that this was a way to produce the map on slightly smaller sheets, either to reduce costs or for ease of binding with other similar items. This was not a case where we needed to de-duplicate the catalogue records, but rather to retain both and explain their complex relationship in more detail.
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