Ordnance Survey
By Cath Thompson

With no newspapers to advertise in until later in the 17th. century, advertising of maps for sale was often done by way of handbills being distributed in appropriate places, but eventually, stock catalogues were produced, the first of which was issued by Robert Walton in 1655. Trading of the country’s maps was based in London, initially around St. Paul’s Churchyard, Cheapside, Newgate and Cornhill, but by the 18th. century there were dealers to be found in Charing Cross, Fleet Street and Holborn. The publication of maps was an extremely expensive business and was therefore only affordable by a limited few, especially when so many were being imported from overseas. A huge helping hand for British map makers came in 1712 by way of a 30% import tax on foreign imports, thus raising their cost. This in turn increased the demand for maps produced in England and eventually resulted in English goods being exported overseas.

Ordnance Survey - Most early mappings of the British Isles were originally done on a county by county basis and were not particularly accurate. The Royal Society of Arts offered the princely sum of £100 to anyone who could produce an accurate, specific county, survey on a scale of one inch to one mile. It was during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which culminated in the Battle of Culloden the following year, that General William Roy accurately surveyed Scotland. This inspired a joint military and civilian venture between the Board of Ordnance and the Duke of Richmond who set up a survey office in the Tower of London in 1782. It should be borne in mind that the Board of Ordnance was originally a military organisation responsible for the country’s weapons amongst other things. The Ordnance Survey was officially established on 21st. June 1791 when the purchase of a new Ramsden theodolite was recorded in the Board of Ordnance account book. In 1799 the threat of invasion from France instigated the military mapping of the entire south coast of England by all the Ordnance Survey personnel available. This resulted in the first Ordnance Survey map of Kent (at a scale of one inch to one mile) being published on 1st. January 1801.