Hertfordshire Maps

43x31 cm

THE DISPATCH ATLAS
HERTFORDSHIRE
BY B.R.DAVIES FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY.
Weekly Dispatch Atlas, 139 Fleet Str. 
Engraved by B.R.Davies, 16 George Str. Euston Squ.
Day & Son Lith.^rs to The Queen. 

Benjamin Rees Davies (c.1789-1872), engraver, cartographer, publisher and printer, was born in London about 1789. He was apprenticed to engraver John Lodge (fl.1794-1823) in 1803 and among his earliest recorded works was Andrew Bryant's map of Hertfordshire considered by many to be the finest printed map of the county.
Commencing publication in 1856, this series of maps were printed by lithographic transfer from an engraved plate for The Weekly Dispatch Newspaper. The maps were also published as loose sheets and, when the series was complete, in The Dispatch Atlas in 1863. The publishers Cassell Petter and Galpin acquired the plates publishing them as loose sheets from 1864 and in Cassell's Illustrated family paper and Cassell's British Atlas in 1867. By 1869, the firm of G. W. Bacon had acquired the plates and published them in a number of titles for over forty years.

This example of the map of Hertfordshire is the first lithographic transfer published from April 1860 and in The Dispatch Atlas in 1863.
Small repaired tear to bottom margin reaching the printed border and repaired scuff at margin top right corner, otherwise a good example in original wash line hand colour from the first edition.

Hodson Printed Maps of Hertfordshire ref. 113A.