Category Archives: History

Why some maps lie and how they do it

Maps are 2-dimensional representations of a location, created by a cartographer, editor or publisher. Most are straightforward in that they portray accurately (hopefully) that area covered. Occasionally they mislead, either accidentally or deliberately. A misleading map played a part in one of the most famous and important events in World history. Christopher Columbus’s decision to sail west to reach the East Indies was partly due to a map in an atlas of maps by the Classical cartographer Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-170). While this map was the most up to date

based on contemporary knowledge it missed parts of the Earth as yet undiscovered by European explorers. Without the knowledge of a whole new continent in the west Columbus set sail hoping to find a new and quicker route to the East Indies but instead discovered the New World. To read more about how the Bodleian’s copy of a Ptolemy atlas has an amazing connection with Columbus click here.

Another intriguing example of misleading cartography is the representation of ‘Phantom Islands’ on maps. These are islands which for a number of reasons; low cloud, recording already surveyed locations as ‘new islands’ and mirages have all been the cause in the past, are mapped and then continue appearing on maps as cartographers use old information, until a new survey is made or a ship reports that the island doesn’t actually exist. The inset on the right is of a map made in 1710 of South America which features Pepys Island, named after the famous diarist who was also the Secretary to the Navy. Lying off the coast of Argentina and first recorded in 1683. Pepys Island was shown on maps for over 150 years until 1839, when was finally proved not to exist. This extract is from South America corrected from the observations comunicated to the Royal Society’s of London & Paris… by John Senex, which featured in a blog here

These are just a few examples of how maps can, without meaning to, lie (or, to be fairer, give incorrect information). There are a number of examples though of publishers deliberately making mistakes on their maps. Soviet-era maps intended for Western visitors were often misleading to avoid Western states having accurate mapping of Soviet cities and towns. Some commercial publishers include false information amongst their maps to catch competitors out who have copied work without acknowledging or seeking permission, This is more common on street atlases, which is why the these false inclusions have the rather wonderful name of ‘trap streets’.

The reason for this long preamble is that, like other colleagues in the Map Room at the Bodleian, i’ve spent a good part of the lockdown going through scanned images in folders and recording shelfmarks and other details (see the blog ‘Rummaging through virtual maps’ directly below). My work has involved working through the Bodleian’s trench and other maps of the First World War. These are amongst the most evocative of all the maps in the collection, full of names that for anyone interested in history are instantly recognizable; Mametz Wood, Passchendaele, the Somme, Messines and Vimy Ridge. These are maps made for, and used in, the planning and carrying out of operations that in some cases cost the lives of thousands while making miniscule gains in land. But the reason for including these maps in this blog is that the more detailed trench maps, at 1:10,000 and 1:20,000 scales, ultimately, but necessarily, lie. For example take this extract of a trench map covering the French city of Lens.

The red lines to the right are the German front-line and support trenches, the blue lines are the Allied trenches (most trench maps only show the Allied front-line, it’s not often that you have so much Allied trenches shown in case the map was captured by the enemy). These trenches, the information relevant for the December 1917 date of the map, are overlaid onto a pre-war map showing what looks like a normal French city with railways, roads, houses and churches. In reality the city had been heavily bombed during the War with most of the buildings levelled, and the trenches were made out of the rubble caused by bomb damage.

A better example of the contradiction between map and ground can be achieved by comparing this map covering Chateau Wood with a photo of the same area. Chateau Wood is east of the Belgian city of Ypres and had been behind the German front-line until Allied advances towards the Passchendaele Ridge in the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917.

Hooge, 3rd ed, 1917. C1 (3) [1973]

On the trench map the Wood has field boundaries and tracks through the trees (Chateau Wood is east of Hooge in square 13, and can be seen in this extract). Compare the calm and ordered landscape portrayed on the map with the reality on the ground from this photograph of duckboard tracks going through the wood taken in October after advanced beyond the wood and beyond towards Passchendaele.

Ultimately though how do you map land like this which has had all recognizable features long-since destroyed and ground constantly altered by artillery fire? During major battles maps were produced on a regular basis to keep as up to date as possible with an ever-changing front-line, hard enough to do if just mapping the new positions of trenches, impossible to complete if you mapped each new shell crater or destroyed pill-box. To have vital and ever-changing information such as trenches and enemy positions printed over a landscape that was no longer there but was shown on pre-war mapping was, with the need for accurate and quickly produced maps, the only option, but by necessity a lie.

For more on trench maps and the Bodleian Library click here

The Devil’s what?

Herman Moll (c1654-1732) was a cartographer who moved to London from north-west Europe in 1678. At first Moll worked for other established mapmakers as an engraver before setting up his own workshop making and selling maps. These images come from one of his most celebrated works, ‘A set of fifty new and correct maps of England and Wales’* published in 1724. The Bodleian has a number of copies of this work, some of which were in black and white with others hand-painted, these images come from one of the black and white editions.

Oxfordshire has two illustrations for Blenheim Palace, completed two years earlier in 1722, and one for the Rolle-Rich Stones (Rollright Stones), built considerably earlier at some point between 2670 to 1975 BC. For those familiar with the Rollrights this is an image before restoration in the late 1800s which replaced a lot of stones broken up from the original circle, increasing the amount of stones in place. Next to the Rollrights is a mosaic from a Roman villa north of Woodstock.

One of the stranger illustrations found on any of the county maps is from the the West Riding of Yorkshire page, of the Halifax gibbet, which promises ‘according to the Halifax Law whereby they beheaded any one instantly‘. A ruling (the ‘Halifax Law’) that allowed the Lord of the Manor to execute thieves by beheading had been in place since the 1200s, and the gibbet was Installed at some point in the sixteenth century. A large number were executed under this law but it isn’t known how many were executed using the gibbet, which was dismantled after the the last executions in 1650 under instruction from Oliver Cromwell.

Moll had an obvious love of anything old, his county maps are filled with portraits of antiquities around the margins, and on his title page a note promises ‘to render this work more acceptable to the curious, the margins of each map are adorn’d with great varieties of very remarkable antiquities’. Roman coins and fossils, given all sorts of weird and wonderful names, feature prominently. On this half page of Wiltshire two views of Stonehenge are given. Both are a relatively accurate portrayal, something that earlier cartographers such as John Speed, hadn’t done, setting the great circle in mountainous countryside and making the stones look tubular (extract from Wiltshire, John Speed, facsimile (E) C17:61 (49), original map 1610).

This last page is a map of the county of Derbyshire, parts of which have an underlying limestone bed, leading to numerous cave systems.

The Devil’s Arse is more commonly known now as Peak Cavern.

There is little in the maps in Moll’s book that make them any more special than similar atlases printed at the time. Few roads are shown, though those that do have distances between towns marked, and boundaries of the county hundreds are set out. What makes Moll special is the illustrations, historical portraits made to appeal to both the armchair traveller and any with an archaeological and scientific interest giving an idea of the unique features found in each of the counties.

*The full title is A set of fifty new and correct maps of the counties of England and Wales, &c. with the great roads and principal cross-roads, &c. Shewing the computed miles from town to town. A work long wanted, and very useful for all gentlemen that travel to any part of England. All, except two, composed and done by Herman Moll, geographer.

Allen 18 Oxfordshire and Derbyshire

Unsung heroes

Engravers can be the unsung heroes or heroines of the map world. Until the nineteenth century, virtually all printed maps were produced by engraving the map on a sheet of copper – or later on, steel – as a mirror image of how the finished map would look. The plate was then inked and the image printed onto a sheet of paper in a printing press. This was incredibly skilled work, but often only very discreetly acknowledged, the engraver’s name appearing in tiny, modest letters in the bottom margin.

While cataloguing a large collection of nineteenth century French sea charts I have encountered some exceptional engravers. One we know only by his surname: Chassant, working in Paris from the late 1830s into the 1860s, was arguably wasted on sea charts. His dramatic portrayal of land relief using hachuring is very striking, as can be seen from this chart showing the old port of Marseille and the rugged hills to the south in 1845.

When cataloguing these maps we always want to give the engravers their due, but identifying exactly who was responsible for a particular map can be challenging. The case of the Halls was discussed in a recent post – there were possibly quite a few women involved in early engraving. Mme Fontaine, a Paris based engraver of the 1860s and ’70s, is credited on her work simply as “Fontaine”, with no first name or title; research has revealed only that she was a female engraver who specialised in portraying large areas of water.

Around the same time, an engraver called C.E. Collin was also working on charts for the French Dépôt-général de la marine. Engraving was sometimes a family business, and this can make it harder to work out who engraved a particular map. This C.E. Collin appears to have been the youngest of three engravers called Charles Etienne Collin who produced charts for the Dépôt (as well as some other works) between 1789 and the 1870s. The oldest one usually signed himself “E. Collin”, although he is also also believed to have had the given name Charles. In 1821, a two sheet chart appeared, of which one sheet was described as being “gravé par E. Collin” and the other “par E. Collin père”. There is some overlap of the map area on the 2 sheets and differences in style suggest that they were made by different engravers. It was unusual for the older E. Collin to call himself “E. Collin père”, so perhaps this was an early collaboration with his son. In 1829 the younger E. Collin took a different approach, engraving a chart and signing it “gravé par C.E. Collin fils.” Was this yet another young engraving Collin, or was he inconsistent in the use of his initials? E. Collin père is generally supposed to be be Charles Etienne Collin; perhaps he disliked or rarely used his first name, and his son followed suit?

The second Collin continued to engrave charts into the 1830s. From the late 1840s a third C.E. Collin appears, and he was active into the 1870s. He was probably a grandson or nephew of the first Collin, but it is difficult to be sure exactly where one person’s work stops and the next one begins. Or why they couldn’t come up with a wider range of given names. The third Collin was an exceptionally fine engraver and his charts are really beautiful; one is represented above. In particular, some of his sea charts show a remarkable degree of detail for the land; in the chart above, the patchwork of fields, and even the approximate layout of small villages can be seen. In both these cases, the land information shown would be of use to sailors, helping them to spot landmarks from out at sea. It is also a valuable record of a rural stretch of coast over 150 years ago, since transformed by the growth of the city of Montpellier.

Plan du port de Marseille et de ses environs. Paris: Dépôt-général de la marine, 1845.

Carte des côtes méridionales de France: Partie comprise entre Cette et Marseille. Paris: Dépôt des cartes et plans de la marine, 1867. B1 a.61/14

I do here, good reader…

In a time of uncertainty here on Earth it’s reassuring to look to the heavens for a more stable environment, one in which we can predict what will happen with remarkable accuracy considering the vast expanse of space. This amazing map, ‘A scheme of the Solar System with the orbits of the Planets and Comets belonging thereto, describ’d from Dr. Halley’s accurate table of Comets…founded on Sr. Isaac Newton’s wonderful discoveries, by Wm. Whiston, M.A.’ shows with a great amount of information how a complex system of orbits and planetary bodies work together and present a predictable path through time and space.

‘A scheme of the Solar System with the orbits of the Planets and Comets belonging thereto, describ’d from Dr. Halley’s accurate table of Comets…founded on Sr. Isaac Newton’s wonderful discoveries, by Wm. Whiston, M.A., 1712, (E) A1 (3)

William Whiston (1662-1752) was for a time Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, and he also lectured on Natural Philosophy in London. He produced this map in 1712 with the noted map and globe maker John Senex to illustrate the course of comets as predicted in work by Sir Edmund Halley and the ground-breaking work on planetary motion set out by Sir Isaac Newton.

The map shows the orbits of ‘about twenty one known Comets…’. according to Halley’s calculations (there are now over 3,000 recorded Comets in the Universe), the orbits of the Planets and, at the top, the relative size of the 6 known primary Planets and the Moon (the size of the Sun is represented by the outer circle of the map of the Solar System).

There is a remarkable amount of explanatory test on the map describing the six Planets and the ten secondary Planets (which we would know call the moons of the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn) and descriptions of the system of Comets and the Sun. Like all good exponents of a new theory Whiston makes a bold claim for his map at the start. ‘I do here, good reader, present thee with a scheme of the Planetary and Cometary World, part of which hath of late been called the Hypothesis of Pythagoras or Copernicus, but is now so certainly known to be the real system of nature that it ought no longer to have that uncertain title of hypothesis applied to it’. It’s amazing how many maps produced around the 1700 and 1800s include some form of claim such as this, or include in the tile ‘A new survey..’ or a variation on that phrase. The text goes on to acknowledge the size of the Universe and then ends with crediting the Creator, ‘As to the Fixed Stars, they are vastly remote from our Planetary and Cometary system but may perhaps every one be the center of another Solar System. Dr. Hook and Mr. Flamsteed think they have discovered their annual parallax and that is about 45″ which will imply there to be 900,000 millions of miles distance from our Sun; or according to Hugenius’s calculation in the like case much further than a bullet shot out of a canon could go in 100,000 years. But of such vast and numberless systems…we know very little, only so much we know of ye Planetary and Cometary World, and of the probability of Fixed Stars…as is sufficient to make us cry out with the Psalmist O Lord, how manyfold are thy works! In wisdom have you made them all!

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) produced most of the surveys of London after the Great Fire of 1666 and went on to try and measure distances to stars using parallax, which takes the difference in angles of a measured distance seen from two different points. John Flamsteed (1646-1719) was the first Astronomer Royal and wrote star atlases and catalogues which were more detailed than any previously published. Hugenius is the Latin version of the name of the Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), one of the leading scientists of his or any other age. One of Huygens many contributions to science was the discovery of Saturn’s ring system and the first of the Planet’s moons after making improvements to the telescope. Hooke and Halley were involved in a wager offered by no less than Sir Christopher Wren while the three were at lunch in 1683 to discover why the Planets orbited the Sun in an ellipse, and not in a circle as suggested by Copernicus. To find the answer Halley travelled to Cambridge to talk to Isaac Newton, at the time Lucasian Professor of Mathematics ( Whiston replaced Newton in the role in 1702). Not only did Newton have the answer to the question but following promoting by Halley wrote his findings up in one of the most important Scientific books ever written, the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, more commonly known by the first word of the original Latin title, the Principa. In this book Newton set out his three laws of motion and explains how the orbits of the celestial bodies work and the nature of gravity. Newton’s ideas in the Principa and Halley’s work on comets are the key to Whiston’s map.

John Senex was a noted map and globe maker and uses text at the bottom of the map to promote his products, extolling the worth of his maps and globes while also warning of the inferior products made by others based on his work. There are two of Senex’s globes on display in the Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room at the Weston Library (the globe of the heavens is shown here), possibly the two mentioned in the text ‘ He maketh ye newest globes of 16. 12. & 3 inches diam. and has just finish’d in a most elegant manner a pair of 28 inches diam. fit to adorn public librarys, or of the librarys of the most curious’. Senex has featured on this blog before, first in a

piece about globes (http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/2019/01/28/golden-globes/) and then, and more relevant to this piece in a post about a map of South America (http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/2019/02/22/a-tale-of-two-maps/) which is dedicated to Halley and marks the point where, during a voyage to map the magnetic variations in the Earth, Halley’s ship the Paramore encountered ice for the first time. Halley then produced a map of the World with the variations shown, which would enable navigators to plot a correct course using a ship’s compass with corrections made according to the variation shown

Halley’s magnetic chart [a facsimile from 1870 of Halley’s ‘New and correct chart shewing the variations of the compass, 1701], B1 (382)

Found in a box

Looking through a box of uncatalogued maps, plots and diagrams I came across several manuscript architectural plans of the Midland Grand Hotel, London. Now named the St Pancras Hotel it is an iconic landmark on the Euston Road next to that other celebrated edifice of red brick, the British Library. The plans, drawn to show the girders, were by engineer Richard Moreland of Old Street in 1867 at a scale of 10 feet to 1 inch (1:120). You can see all of the modern internal features with the Grand Staircase and the popular Ladies Coffee Room. There are even manuscript pencil marks denoting dimensions which indicate these were some sort of working drawings.

The hotel is a masterpiece of high Gothic designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who beat ten other architects for the commission, even though his design was far bigger and far more expensive that Midland Railway Company specified. The competition was launched in 1865 for a 150 bed hotel but it was finally completed in 1876 with 300 rooms. With its very high standard of fixtures and fittings the Midland Grand soon acquired a reputation as a luxurious upmarket hotel – even better than the celebrated Langham in Portland Place. This luxury didn’t come cheap costing nearly £500,000 to construct it charged the sum of 14 shilling a night – an average week’s wages for an agricultural labourer.

MS. Maps Eng. a. 3 (1)

A revolutionary new year

Two intriguing maps of the Channel, both with something special about them.

The first uses hachures (lines on a map to indicated hill slopes) around the coasts which has effect of making the land stand out.

The effect is lovely even if not representative of the actual height of land. The map, titled ‘3d [as in third] chart of the coast of France, including the British Channel’ comes from ‘Le Petit Neptune Français; or, French Coast Pilot, for the coast of Flanders, Channel, Bay of Biscay, and Mediterranean’, published in 1793 by W. Faden, Geographer to his Majesty and to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The book was published 4 years after the start of the French Revolution and just a year after the new French Republic was founded. Despite this the book has an innocent intent, a Coast Pilot is an aide for navigation and sailing and this map includes the familiar rhumb lines and compass rose that are found on sailing charts, and there seems to be no mention of any danger in sailing around and into France along the tidal rivers in the book.

The Paris Observatory is shown, an important building at a time when France was one of the leading cartographic nations. The building pre-dates the Greenwich Observatory and was the site of the Paris Meridian, which has in the past competed with Greenwich to be the main meridian. The map also features along the bottom of the page a cross-section of the land in relation to the sea floor between the Isles of Sicily and Orford Ness.

A French alternative to the Faden map is a map of the Channel by the French ‘Ministre de la

Marine’. What is interesting about this map is the dates given, ‘ I’ An VII de la République, nouvelle edition de I’ An XI’. Following the start of the Revolution a new way of recording years was implemented but as this introduced towards the end of 1793 there is no year one, year two goes from 22nd September 1793 to 22nd Sept. 1794 with the years numbered after this. Our map, ‘Carte réduite de La Manche’, was first published in year VII (1799) and then reprinted in XI (1802), during the planning and build up of resources for a possible invasion of Britain by Napoleon which was called off in 1805. It is one of the few maps in the library dated this way.

The map has seen better days, as can be seen be this burn mark just above Rouen.

Le Petit Neptune Français; or, French Coasting Pilot…’ 1793. W. Faden Vet A5 d.570

Carte redutie de La Manche… 1802. (E) C2:5 (34)

KA-BOOM!!!!

With the eruption of its volcano on the 26th of August 1883 the landscape of the island of Krakatoa changed in an instant. Over two thirds of the island disappeared in the explosion,

unleashing a tsunami that killed at least 36,000 people in the immediate area and created waves of sufficient power to register on tidal readings as far away as the English Channel.

New chart of Sunda Straits, 1883. D32 (103)

This map is a remarkable record of the changes caused by the eruption and subsequent tsunamis, made by Captain Morris of the Australian steam-ship ‘Chyebassa’ on the 2nd of September 1883, 136 years ago today. Morris states on the map how “We came through the Sunda Straits after the earthquake and found the Southern or Main Channnel perfectly clear. Flat Cape light is not burning, though the lighthouse is standing. Anjer and Anjer lighthouse is completely swept away [as can be seen in this extract from the map showing both the previous and post-eruption coastline]. The coast is very difficult to recognize, the whole of the trees which lined the shoreline are gone…The Government have a steamer cruising off Flat Cape, to warn vessels not to take the Bezee Channel, as it is completely blocked. There is also a vessel for the same purpose off Nicholas Point. We put Batavia [modern Jakarta] pilot on board the ship off Flat Cape for the “Roma”; after passing Nicholas Point, you must take the Northern passage, as all the buoys are away in the South pass”.

The explosion of Krakatoa was a truly global event, and news of the eruption was transmitted around the world via the telegraph cable (called on the map a submarine cable) which linked Java with the World by the cable laid through the Straits which connected Australia to London via Singapore. A message sent from Java could get to London in as little as three hours. Global in another way, as countries as far away as England and the United States felt the effects of Krakatoa in less violent ways. Sunsets were affected by the dust thrown up into the atmosphere and the remnants of the Tsunamis that swept the region were recorded on tidal gauges as far away as the English Channel while changes in weather patterns were registered in Los Angeles.

In 1888 the Royal Society of London produced a richly illustrated report, ‘The eruption of Krakatoa and subsequent phenomena’ (Vet A7 c.45) which gave detailed accounts, causes and the effects caused the eruption. Included are watercolours of the sunsets over Chelsea

and a map of the reach of the waves caused by the explosion, that proved so devastating to those near the volcano, throughout the World

The introduction to the report gives some idea as to the confusion and damage to lives and property caused by Krakatoa.

‘During the closing days of the month of August, 1883, the telegraph–cable from Batavia carried to Singapore and thence to every part of the civilised World the news of the terrible subterranean convulsion – one which in its destructive results in life and property, and in the startling character of the World-wide effects to which it gave rise, is perhaps without parallel in historic times.

As is usual in such cases, the first report of this tremendous outburst of the volcanic forces appear to have been quite misleading and altogether unworthy of credence. Nor is this to be wondered at. The towns and villages along the shores of the Sunda Strait were, during the crisis of the eruption, enveloped in a terrible darkness, which lasted many hours, and, while thus obscured, were overwhelmed by a succession of great sea-waves; those who succeeded in saving their lives amid these appalling incidents were, it need scarcely be added, not in a position to make trustworthy observations upon the wonderful succession of phenomena occurring around them’.

Opposite this page is the illustration of the volcano at the top of this blog post.

London fields

It’s always fascinating to look at early maps of the outskirts of cities, as the landscape has often undergone an incredible transformation. This map of the parish of St Pancras in London is a wonderful example. Made 215 years ago in 1804, it shows the parish as an elongated shape stretching north from what is now part of London’s crowded West End. The first extract here shows part of the northern sheet.

Gough Maps London 43

The map is on 2 sheets oriented with west (approximately) at the top. Although north orientation was fairly standard by 1804, it’s not unusual for large scale local maps to be oriented in whichever way most conveniently fits the shape of the paper. The southern extremity of the parish is the junction between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street (now the site of Tottenham Court Road tube station) in the west, and Clerkenwell in the east. The streets of Bloomsbury are already densely built up but north of what is now Euston Road is mainly open fields. Camden and Kentish town are separate villages on the main road out of London. The canal, of course, was yet to come and the mainline railway stations that dominate the area now were far in the future. The extract below shows the area now occupied by St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, and the British Library; the main road running from top to bottom is now the Euston Road.

It’s also interesting to see the things that remain, or have left tangible traces. The Polygon, a then recent development of houses in a circle facing inwards, was fairly recently built when this map was made; its name survives in Polygon Road nowadays. The Royal Veterinary College to the east of Camden was already established and is still there. On the northern sheet, the more hilly landscape towards Hampstead and Highgate is represented by hachuring; the distinctive shape of the line of ponds across Hampstead Heath hasn’t changed much since 1804. Kenwood House, then the seat of the Earl of Mansfield and recently remodelled, still stands surrounded by its parkland, now managed by English Heritage. The oak tree under which people would gather to hear gospel readings is marked; Gospel Oak is still the name of a London district and a train station.

The map is very detailed and finely engraved; the accompanying written survey, or terrier book, explains that the mapmaker, John Tompson (also described elsewhere as Thompson or Tomson) had made it under the patronage of landowners who had property in the parish, “at the expense of upwards of three years labour.” The terrier is very thorough, listing the landowners, and identifying the individual land parcels (numbered on the map) by their use and area. All individual streets are described and their buildings listed. This is an exceptionally detailed record of an area now transformed almost beyond recognition.

The Atlantic Charter

Created by the artist and cartographer MacDonald Gill this map is one of the most aesthetically pleasing items in the collection.

The “Time and Tide” map of the Atlantic Charter, 1942. B1 (174)

Tide and Time was a weekly political and literary magazine starting in 1920.

Not only is it visually stunning the map is also an important historical document. Created in 1941 to promote the post-war aims of the Allied Countries by Sir Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt the charter committed participating nations to 8 points, all of which are stated on the map. This is an idealized view of the World, with agriculture and local industry prominent. Despite the state of the War in 1942 Germany is portrayed without any hint of hostilities currently taking place but is instead basking in the rays of the Sun like any other nation.

In the bottom corner is a quote from the Book of Isiah setting out the hopes and ambitions of the signatories to the Charter. Swords have been replaced by weapons of the War then taking place but the image powerfully portrays the sentiment intended.

Gill created a number of maps, including one of the earliest of the London Underground, but also has a link with the First World War. He designed the font used on Commonwealth Cemetery gravestones.

Churchill and Roosevelt met off the coast of Newfoundland in 1941, with Churchill traveling across the Atlantic on board HMS Prince of Wales. The journalist H.V. Morton accompanied him and wrote a book about the meeting between the two leaders that led to the creation of the Charter.

Atlantic meeting (1943) Bradford e.737

Morton’s book included a map of the route on the inside cover. Morton was a journalist with the Daily Express in 1923 when he reported on the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings before The Times, who had paid for exclusive rights to the expedition.

An earlier blog post (July 2015) features a map showing the voyages and journeys Sir Winston Churchill made while Prime Minister during the War which included in the top corner pictures of the ships and planes used, including the Prince Of Wales

[Extracts from] Dunkirk to Berlin, June 1940 – July 1945. Journeys undertaken by the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, O.M., C.H., F.R.S., M.P., Prime Minister of Great Britain in defence of the British Commonwealth and Empire, 1947. B2 (101)

The Charter was such an important event that there was even music written in honour of it

Atlantic Charter, grand march (1942) Mus.120 d.15

D-Day

We’ve blogged about D-Day mapping before, with detailed beach and German defences maps featuring here http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/2015/09/ and http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/2014/06/ but the 75th anniversary of the landings gives us another chance to show some of the items relating to Operation Overlord in the Bodleian. D-Day involved putting onshore over 175,000 troops, 4,500 guns and tanks and another 15,000 vehicles, all transported across the channel by over 11,000 ships. With planning starting in late 1943 maps would play a crucial roll in the organization, movement and attacking abilities of the Allied forces to make the operation a success. Nearer the time enemy troop deployment and defences were plotted onto existing mapping (see examples in the links at start of this piece) but in the early stages of planning the operation non-military aspects had to be studied and considered. Two examples are shown here from the Office of Strategic Services, the United States Intelligence Agency which after the war became the C.I.A.

The Channel Coast Jan 1944 C2:5 (10) and N.W. Normandy wind conditions June 1943 C21:37 (9)

The first map gives a different perspective of the routes across the Channel and illustrates nicely the different options available, and the distances involved, to Allied Command on where to cross the Channel. The second map is one of a number produced by both the American and British Intelligence Departments dealing with the purely practical information needed to plan the invasion, in this case wind conditions but there are similar maps for tides and inland flooding in Normandy.

The OSS was also involved, along with the British Intelligence Agencies, in a major deception campaign to convince the Germans that the landings would take place anywhere else than on the Normandy beaches. Codenamed Bodyguard, creating new and totally fictitious divisions and artillery, false radio transmissions and leaking information to double-agents meant the Germans were fooled into believing in a build-up of Allied forces in Britain which didn’t exist.

Grossbritannien und Irland mit standorten des engl. Heeres 1944. C15 (468)

This map of Britain made by the German General Staff dates from the 15th of May, 1944 and shows what the Germans thought was the deployment of troops three weeks before D-Day. As well as English Army positions (in red) it also shows American (in black) and French (green).

Defence of Britain, defences as at “D” Day 6 June 1944 and anti “diver” defences 1945. C17 (66B)

This British map shows defences and positions on D-Day itself with divisions and defences (“Diver” was the codename for the V-1 rocket, first launched by the Luftwaffe in 1944)

One of the earliest actions on the 6th of June was the landing near the bridges over the canal and River Orme near the village of Benouville, the famous glider attack on Pegasus Bridge.

Plan of Ouistreham-Caen Canal 1943, C21:37 (7)

Capturing the bridges were crucial if the advance on Caen was to succeed. The above map is from the British cartographic department, the Geographical Section, General Staff, while below is a German map of the same area with an extract of the bridge area.

Frankreich 1 : 25 000 Nr XVI-12/1-2 Caen May 1944, C21 (15)

Normandy west of the Seine, the Seine Estuary to Avranches, beaches & landings, 1943. C21:37 (12)

Finally a wonderfully simple but hugely informative map from the early stages of planning showing potential landing beaches. Gradients, geological conditions and length of beach are shown by colour and length of markings and direction of lines. This map shows the levels of planning for the invasion that were already in place in 1943. This extract shows the area of the beach landings on the 6th of June 1944.

Sword beach is nu B43, Juno B44, Gold B45, Omaha B46 and Utah B49.

This is the Guardian from the 7th of June. Coverage of the advances made by the Allied Forces through Europe and into Germany continued until the end of the war,

often with maps illustrating the present situation at the time (the main war news on the 6th is on the advance through Italy and the recent Allied capture of Rome. French news is limited to reports on the considerable damage done to the French railway system by Allied bombing). These next three maps are from the few weeks following on from D-Day.