Isle of Wight

23x16 cm

WOODBLOCK ENGRAVING ALSO KNOWN AS "PINNOCK" MAPS

No. LIX.] GUIDE TO KNOWLEDGE. ^PRICE ONE PENNY
ISLE OF WIGHT
London Edwards 12 Ave Maria Lane
Unsigned woodblock engraving published in weekly parts in The Guide to Knowledge edited by W. Pinnock...London: W.Edwards 1833-34.
Joshua Archer (1792?-1863) and Selina Hall (1708?-1853) were engravers employed for other county maps in the series.

William Pinnock (1782-1843), born in Alton, Hampshire became a schoolmaster. In 1817 he moved to London and, in partnership with Samuel Maunder, began the publication of cheap educational works. The Guide to Knowledge was a publication issued in weekly parts between 1833 and 1834 and containing maps printed from the woodblock with the incised lines appearing white on a black ground. The technique proved unpopular for topographical maps and was not used again, the county maps appearing later in a more traditional format by lithographic transfer Johnson's Atlas of England in 1847 & 1863.


The engraver was Joshua Archer (c.1792-1863), engraver, cartographer and copperplate printer, born in Barnstaple in Devon. His first recorded work as an engraver was a map of Scotland for Robert Wilkinson in 1814. He was declared bankrupt in 1835, imprisoned for debt in 1845 but recorded as a map and chart engraver aged 69, on the 1861 census, living in Islington with his wife, Jane, a son, John, also a map and chart engraver, Albert Archer, a map and chart draughtsman, his wife Elizabeth and three children. 

Very good example from the first issue.