Cumberland Maps

44x50 cm

FINELY ENGRAVED FOLIO MAP IN FULL ORIGINAL HAND COLOUR.

A NEW MAP of the COUNTY of CUMBERLAND Divided into Wards
LONDON Printed for C.SMITH N^o.172 Strand January 6^th.1804.

Engraved by the firm of Jones and Smith, this series of large county maps were produced for Smith's New English Atlas being a complete set of County Maps, Divided into Hundreds...first published by C. Smith, London 1804. The maps were also issued separately from 1801.

Charles Smith (1768?-1854), was a publisher, stationer and map-seller working from The Strand 1800-1854, he was appointed Map-seller to the Prince of Wales by 1809 and trading as “Charles Smith & Son” or “Smith & Son” 1826-1854, Charles himself retiring in 1852. The business continued in the family until 1916 when it was taken over by the firm of George Philip.
Charles Smith was probably not related to the engraving firm of “Jones and Smith” or “Smith and Jones” formed by the partnership of engravers Edward Jones (fl.1799-1818) and Charles Smith (1768?-1854) trading 1799-1801 and with Joseph Bye (1779-1817) as “Jones, Smith & Bye” or Jones, Smith & Co. 1801-1804.

The publication of this work predated the publication of Cary's New English Atlas, a work of striking similarity, by five years, and was the first series of county maps to show longitude measured from the Greenwich meridian.

Archival tape repair verso to right centrefold split affecting printed margin and some light offsetting* but still a good example of the map of Cumberland which is an early issue from the atlas edition of 1804 in full original hand colour.

* Offsetting: A "ghostly" mirror image caused by evaporation from ink (or hand colour) when a map is folded or stacked on other maps before the ink is completely dry.