Chapter 5
This final chapter follows British mapmaking from the expanding maritime world of the late seventeenth century to the systematic national surveys of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sea charts became more reliable, county surveys more scientific, road maps more practical and, with the arrival of the Ordnance Survey, the landscape was recorded to consistent national standards.
Empire, Trade and the Demand for Sea Charts
England’s growing overseas trade created an urgent demand for maps and charts. The capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the English seizure of New Amsterdam in 1664 and the establishment of colonies on the North American mainland encouraged colonists, merchants and officials to commission new surveys.
In 1670 John Seller, Hydrographer to the King, began publishing charts of northern European waters in works including The English Pilot and The Coasting Pilot. Seller drew upon Dutch plates as well as information supplied by English navigators. His publications helped establish a commercial market for English charts, although their quality and originality varied.
Captain Greenvile Collins was later commissioned to survey the coasts of Great Britain. His Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot, published in 1693, was the first substantially original engraved sea atlas of British waters produced by an English surveyor after Robert Dudley’s Arcano del Mare. Its charts showed coastal profiles, soundings, shoals, anchorages and bearing lines to recognisable landmarks.
Detail from an Antique Sea Chart of the North Sea by Captain Greenvile Collins
See our reproduction antique sea chart by Greenvile Collins.
Local Pilots, Pacific Charts and Edmund Halley
By the 1730s, local pilots were producing charts of remarkable practical value. A 1738 chart of the coast between Furness and Anglesey by Samuel Fearon and John Eyes recorded seabed material, tides, high-water times, beacons, buoys, rocks and shoals. Such observations brought the printed chart closer to the form used by modern mariners.
English buccaneers also returned from the Pacific with valuable manuscript charts during the 1680s and 1690s. In Wapping, William Hack made finely coloured copies that were assembled into luxurious manuscript volumes known as “South Sea Waggoners.” These charts carried knowledge of Pacific coasts and harbours to merchants and navigators in London.
Edmond Halley applied scientific observation on an even larger scale. His chart of the trade winds appeared in 1686, and his charts of magnetic variation in the Atlantic and across much of the world were published at the beginning of the eighteenth century. By joining points of equal magnetic variation, Halley introduced a powerful visual method for displaying geographical data.
Compass Variations Shown on a Chart by Edmond Halley
Scientific County Surveys in the Eighteenth Century
Manuscript Title by B. Reeves on an Estate Plan, 1751
English mapmaking advanced rapidly during the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1759 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce offered rewards for accurate county surveys at a scale of one inch to the mile. Benjamin Donn’s twelve-sheet map of Devon, published in 1765, was the first to receive the award. Its scientific survey was accompanied by inset plans of Exeter and Plymouth.
Benjamin Donn’s Wall Map of Devonshire, 1765
View our reproduction vintage map of Devon by Benjamin Donn.
Between 1765 and 1808, thirteen county maps received awards from the Society of Arts, while many other surveyors produced work of comparable quality. Their maps were generally issued across several sheets and often included large town plans. Triangulation diagrams demonstrated the survey’s construction, and Greenwich increasingly provided the principal meridian.
These maps combined scientific purpose with elegant design. Woods appeared as compact groups of treetops, parks were stippled, distances marked at milestones and coasts edged with delicate wave lines. Light colour washes distinguished hundreds, boundaries and roads without obscuring the engraved detail.
Detail from Thomas Jefferys’s Map of Yorkshire, 1771
Triangulation on William Yates’s Map of Lancashire, 1786
John Cary and the Mapping of Britain’s Roads
Large county surveys were impressive but inconvenient for travellers. From 1787, the London publisher John Cary issued compact county atlases that showed roads clearly and could be carried more easily. In 1794 the Postmaster General commissioned him to survey approximately 9,000 miles of principal roads.
Cary’s road maps recorded turnings, distances, inns and notable houses visible from the road. They served a society increasingly connected by mail coaches, fashionable spas and seaside travel, continuing the practical tradition begun by John Ogilby more than a century earlier.
Detail from John Cary’s Survey of the Road from London to High Wycombe, c. 1790
Scotland and Ireland in the Later Eighteenth Century
The movement towards large-scale county mapping spread to Scotland. Between the 1770s and 1780s John Ainslie produced a major national map, a plan of Edinburgh and several county surveys. Andrew and Mostyn Armstrong, Charles Ross and James Stobie also contributed to the mapping of Scottish counties and towns. Reduced maps appeared in Mostyn Armstrong’s Scotch Atlas of 1777.
In Ireland, new Georgian estates created demand for accurate local and county maps. Arthur Nevill and other surveyors produced large-scale county work, while the Reverend Daniel Augustus Beaufort published an influential map of Ireland. Beaufort paid particular attention to ecclesiastical geography, marking churches, curacies and chapels as well as roads and settlements.
Detail from Daniel Augustus Beaufort’s Map of Ireland
Explore our reproduction of Ireland by Daniel Augustus Beaufort.
Road atlases also appeared for both countries. George Taylor and Andrew Skinner published strip maps of Scotland in 1776 and of Ireland in 1778, following the approach Ogilby had pioneered for England. Their engravings recorded road junctions, distances, towns and the names of nearby country-house owners.
Longitude, Exploration and Hydrographic Surveying
Accurate marine timekeepers transformed navigation during the eighteenth century. John Harrison’s chronometers made it possible to determine longitude at sea with far greater reliability. At the same time, James Cook gained recognition through his surveys of the St Lawrence and Newfoundland before undertaking his celebrated Pacific voyages.
Thomas Jefferys published important charts of North American waters, drawing on the work of naval officers and local pilots. Alexander Dalrymple developed his expertise in the East Indies and Pacific, became hydrographer to the East India Company in 1779 and, in 1795, the first Hydrographer of the Navy. His appointment helped establish the institutional foundations of modern Admiralty chartmaking.
The Birth of the Ordnance Survey
The national survey grew from military and scientific work undertaken during the late eighteenth century. General William Roy, who had helped direct the Military Survey of Scotland, measured a carefully surveyed baseline on Hounslow Heath in 1784. This supported the triangulation linking the observatories at Greenwich and Paris.
After Roy’s death, the Duke of Richmond continued the work, and the Ordnance Survey was formally established in 1791. William Mudge became one of its leading early surveyors, while Jesse Ramsden supplied exceptionally precise instruments. The first published Ordnance Survey map, covering Kent, appeared in 1801.
Triangulation gradually extended across Great Britain and Ireland. Surveyors occupied hilltops and church towers, measuring a hierarchy of triangles before detailed ground survey began. Levelling established heights in relation to mean sea level. The first edition of the one-inch map of Great Britain was completed in 1853.
Commercial County Maps in the Ordnance Survey Era
The Ordnance Survey did not immediately displace commercial mapmakers. William Faden, Aaron Arrowsmith, John Cary and John Thomson continued to publish admired maps and atlases. During the 1820s and 1830s, Christopher and John Greenwood and Andrew Bryant issued detailed county maps at one inch to the mile.
These commercial maps often made county, hundred and parish boundaries clearer than the earliest Ordnance Survey sheets. Their decorative titles and carefully engraved lettering continued established traditions even as their surveying methods became increasingly modern.
Shropshire by A. Bryant and C. and J. Greenwood, c. 1831
Large-Scale Mapping and Lithography
Lithography gradually replaced copper and steel engraving in commercial map production after the middle of the nineteenth century. It was faster and less costly, allowing maps to be revised and printed in larger numbers.
Ireland was the first country mapped throughout by the Ordnance Survey at six inches to the mile. The survey began in 1825 and was completed under Thomas Colby in 1846. Its success encouraged an equivalent survey of Great Britain, followed by the detailed 25-inch plans used for land valuation and transfer. Large towns were also mapped at still greater scales.
St Ives Bay from the First-Edition Ordnance Survey One-Inch Map, 1809
From Hachures to the Popular Edition
Early one-inch Ordnance Survey maps used engraved hill shading and later hachures—short lines whose density suggested the steepness of slopes. Contours, joining points of equal height, provided a more measurable representation of relief and were used on the larger-scale sheets.
During the 1890s, growing interest in cycling encouraged a clearer and more colourful one-inch map. Roads, woods, water and contours were differentiated, while reference grids and improved symbols made sheets easier to use. The Popular Edition introduced after the First World War continued this development, and road classification became essential for motorists.
Ordnance Survey Map of Kineton, Warwickshire
By the 1930s, Ordnance Survey maps combined accurate national triangulation with detailed symbols, classified roads, contours and a regular grid. The long development from engraved county maps and manuscript estate plans had produced a mapping system woven into everyday British life.
Explore Historic British Maps
From Collins’s coastal charts and Donn’s county survey to Cary’s road maps and the national work of the Ordnance Survey, British cartography became progressively more accurate, systematic and accessible. Yet the finest maps retained the visual character that makes historic cartography so rewarding to study and display.
Browse our collection of old maps of Great Britain.