Yorkshire North Riding

42x37 cm

FIRST TO SHOW LONGITUDE FROM LONDON AND FIRST FOLIO MAP TO SHOW ROADS.

THE NORTH RIDING OF YORKSHIRE
By Rob.t Morden.
Sold by {Abel Swale Awnsham and John Churchill


Copper engraving produced by Robert Morden for publication in Edmund Gibson's translation of William Camden's Britannia first published by Abel Swalle and Awnsham & John Churchill in 1695. Sutton Nichols and John Sturt have signed some of the maps as engravers but other engravers were also probably employed.

Robert Morden (fl. 1669-1703) mapmaker, mapseller, globemaker, engraver and publisher, is best known for this  series of county maps published in Camden’s Britannia and little is known of his early life. His output was considerable, producing maps and other works in association with many other well known mapmakers and publishers including John Overton, Philip Lea, William Morgan and  Christopher Browne. He was a frequent partner of William Berry from the Wakefield area of Yorkshire who was apprenticed to Joseph Moxon, it is most probable that Morden was also apprenticed to Moxon and, given that the Morden name and variants of it are common in Wakefield, he may also come from that area. Morden is recorded as having the polymath Robert Hooke and diarist Samuel Pepys among his customers and associates. He was a member of the Weavers company and churchwarden of his parish church, St. Christopher-le-Stocks, 1679-1680. He and his wife Mary baptised at least seven children at the same church and he was buried with his wife “in ye north ile” on 25th August 1703. Morden did not receive royal appointments granted to less able contemporaries, and he described himself as having “lain latent under the horizon of unknown obscurity and irresistible poverty” and hoped for “better rewards” in the next world.

This is the first series of maps to mark longitude in minutes of time (top border) as well as in degrees (bottom border). For most counties, including this North Riding map, longitude is based on the meridian of St. Paul's, London. They were the first folio sized series of county maps to show roads, Morden using the survey and strip road maps of John Ogilby published in his road book, also entitled Britannia, in 1675. Morden's miniature maps produced on a set of playing cards in 1676, shortly after Ogilby’s production, were the first complete set of county maps to include roads. Morden did not use Ogilby's standardisation of measure for the mile at 1760 yards, preferring a somewhat arbitrary approximation of local variations of the mile, to include three scales; 'Great', 'Middle' and 'Small’.

Britannia was republished in 1722, 1730, 1753 and finally, in 1772. Many plates were updated for the 1722 edition, mostly with changes to place name spellings, and all were reworked for the 1753 edition due to plate wear.

This example is from the 1722 edition, although the North Riding is unchanged from the 1695 edition, it can be identified by the use of paper with a large watermark of a horse within a circle.

A very good clean example on fine rag paper, with good margins all round, no damage or restoration, in good later hand colour.

Ref. Whitaker Printed Maps of Yorkshire [164].