GEORGE PHILIP
George Philip & Son Maps
George Philip (1800-82) founded a printing business in 1834 in Liverpool, this becoming George Philip and Son Ltd in 1848, specializing in educational publications such as school atlases, maps etc. From 1856 their main address was at 32 Fleet St, London, though 31 Fleet St also appears from 1884 to 1886 during refurbishment. The Fleet St address was referred to as The London Geographical Institute from 1901. Their works and the offices of associated companies (primarily Philip, Son & Nephew) remained in Liverpool. The Liverpool addresses quoted on maps tended to vary, so are not a reliable dating guide. The firm always referenced itself and titled its maps as Philips’ (sic), though the apostrophe was apt to wander and has since been abandoned.
From the miid-1860s onwards Philip were advertising ‘Travelling Maps’ for England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland, each 22” by 28*, engraved by Bartholomew – “The Publishers … confidently recommend them, as being the most accurate in detail , as well as the cheapest Maps that hitherto been published. Great attention has been paid to the correct laying down of the roads and Railways… Colouring by means of printing insures an accurate definition of boundary and a harmonious general effect, much superior to the old method of colouring by hand”. Despite the above proclamation, it was useless as a road map; the only roads shown were a disjointed few, covering routes not covered by rail (so Liverpool, the publisher’s base, was devoid of roads!). Calling it a Railway Map would have been more honest. The ‘Travelling’ title was later dropped but the maps remained on sale into the 1880s to trap unwary cyclists.
Philips’ County Maps & County Cycling Maps
In 1862 George Philip commenced a series of County maps, including Scotland, utilising maps produced for atlases of England, Wales and Scotland. They were some of the first to use machine rather than hand colouring. The English maps were originally drawn by Edward Weller (whose maps were to be acquired by G. W. Bacon in 1868, see that page). The maps first appeared in Philips’ County Atlas, though some may also have appeared on individual sale. The atlas went through various editions until 1904. Philips’ County Map Atlas of Ireland was similarly redrafted by Bartholomew. In fact, most of the maps advertised by Philip around 1880 were Bartholomew productions, either Bartholomew maps branded as Philip, or maps commissioned by Philip from Bartholomew.An advertisement catalogue c. 1880 states:
- Philips’ New Series of County Maps of England, reduced from the Ordnance Survey… Constructed by Edward Weller F.R.G.S.. New edition, revised and corrected to date, by John Bartholomew, F.R.G.S.. Size – 15 by 20 inches. On sheet, or folded in cloth case, 1s; mounted on cloth and in case, 2s.
These maps, taken from the County Atlas, initially appeared in green board cases, with the map name in gilt lettering. On later editions the Bartholomew reference was dropped from the map. In this new series Yorkshire was covered by four sheets, Rutland was included with Leicestershire. Additional sheets in the series covered Isle of Wight, North Wales and South Wales and later The Lake District and Isle of Man. All maps were all the same sheet size, 18 x 14½”, scales adjusted to fit, reflecting their origin as atlas sheets. Detail beyond county boundaries was very skeletal. Prices were later reduced to 6d paper, 1/- cloth-mounted. There were also larger ‘supplementary’ maps advertised for Lancashire, Yorkshire (each as one sheet) and Wales.
Possibly revision was given to Bartholomew as the Weller plates had been since 1868 the property of George Bacon. Comparing Philips’ Lake District with Bacon’s Cumberland & Westmorland, the two maps at first look to be of different origin, but on closer inspection the former can be seen to be an almost exact redrawing of the latter. The close likeness can be seen with other county maps. Bartholomew-engraved maps were used extensively by Philips’ during the 19th century, for example Philips’ Handy Atlases of 1882, though not always with attribution on their maps and atlases.
From 1884, versions of these County maps began to appear branded as ‘County Cycling Maps’, and containing overprinted information of value to cyclists such as cycle repairers, CTC Consuls and hazardous hills in three grades – ‘to be ridden down with caution’, ‘Break (later Brake) on’ and ‘Dangerous – dismount’, added (see extract below). Similar grading of hills was later adopted by most map producers, though without consensus between them as to whether the arrows should point up or downhill. Prices were as for the standard county maps. Although ‘recycled’ maps, they were some of the first to take cycling seriously and cater specifically for cyclists.
An interesting note on the maps was - The publishers will be glad to receive corrections for future editions of the Cyclists’ Maps – an early acknowledgement that the extent and accuracy of information was very dependent on what cyclists themselves forwarded. There was no other source of information on gradients or surface quality available to mapmakers. Given the mutual interests of map publishers and cyclists it is rather surprising that it was another fifteen years before the CTC sought to have published ‘official’ cycling maps, and that whilst it made some mapmakers’ products available to members at discount, Philips’ maps were not included: indeed there seems to have been a bit of a spat between them and the CTC.
Philips’ Handy Atlas of the Counties of England appeared in 1882 – ‘constructed [strange word!] by John Bartholomew F.R.G.S’. Similar ‘Handy’ atlases of Wales, Scotland and Ireland appeared shortly after. However, this mapping was much less detailed than the earlier County maps and did not supersede them, nor were any cycling maps derived from them. Page size was 16.5cm by 21cm.
About 1902 Philips announced a series of ‘New Enlarged County Cycling Maps’, each 19” by 25” (so to different scales), price a shilling on cloth. At least twelve sheets were produced, according to a contemporary Philips’ advertisement, but I have never come across a single example, nor found any reference to them other than this single one. By this date travellers’ maps based on counties were an outdated concept and they would have faced considerable competition – not least from Philips’ own national map series, now to be described.
The Ravenstein Map Series - Philips’ Topographical Map of England & Wales
The eminent cartographer Ernst Georg (or Ernest George) Ravenstein had collaborated with Philips’ on a number of books, atlases and maps covering many parts of the world. In 1888, on behalf of the British Association, Ravenstein proposed to Philips that they produce two series of new maps of England and Wales, on the 1:200,000 scale, one showing political features, the other physical. At the time there was no recent nationwide mapping on scales smaller than the O.S. one-inch, which was itself still incomplete. On grounds of cost, only a single set of maps was decided upon for production. Although the first sheets were exhibited in 1895 the publication seems to have been delayed until 1897 and was thus already out of date, as the maps still showed the names of wapentakes and hundreds, all of which had been abolished in 1889. The map was particularly thorough in the showing of antiquities, country seats and in naming parishes where not identifiable from place-names. Spot heights were given mainly for isolated hills, rather than to show the rise and fall of roads. It was thus overwhelmingly a ‘reference’ map rather than a ‘road’ map, when demand was increasingly for the latter. It was also badly-timed, as it was based in part on the older Ordnance Survey, rather than its revision undertaken during the 1890s. A further misstep was to fall out with the Cyclists’ Touring Club, apparently over the source of some of the cycling detail on the maps, which resulted in that organisation not stocking them, whilst offering rivals’ products at discounted prices to its members.
Ravenstein’s mapping was to form the basis of two series of maps: first one issued at a nominal 3m to an inch, then a few years later one at 2m to an inch. Their histories have been treated separately in the following sections, though they were of course the same map at root.
Philips’ Three Miles to an Inch Map Series
From 1897 Philips’ published a 3 mile to an inch series (actually 1:200,000, or 3.15 inches to a mile) - Philips’ Topographical Map of England & Wales – using the new Ravenstein mapping. This appeared in 33 sheets, though from the numbering of early sheets it seems some overlapping or supplementary sheets was first contemplated: indeed the earliest publicity and reviews state 40 sheets, and this tallies with the numbering of the sheet illustrated below and such others that bore numbers. The outcome was that numbering of the maps was almost immediately dropped, the now 33 sheets being referenced by a central place-name. The first ten sheets, covering south-east England, appeared in April 1897, these being numbered.
From the start, both the main and the special District maps listed below were also available printed on ‘pegamoid’ waterproof cloth at two shillings and 2/6d respectively, the former twice the price of the cloth-backed version. This would have suppressed sales and the pegamoid option was not made available for Philips’ half-inch versions of the maps, introduced from 1903, nor was it then being advertised for the three mile to an inch maps.
An unusual feature of these maps (and the later half-inch equivalents) was that sheet boundaries followed lines of longitude and latitude, 80 minutes of longitude by 40 minutes of latitude. As a result the map on each sheet was not quite square, but tapered inwards towards the top. Map boundaries followed the 10-minute lines without overlap or flexibility: this meant, for example, that the Norwich sheet omitted the thin strip of Norfolk along the Wash from Kings Lynn to Hunstanton which sensibly should have been included with the rest of the county. The rigid system meant East Kent was awkwardly divided between two sheets, one mainly of the Thames Estuary, the other mainly of the English Channel (though you got a chunk of France, around Boulogne, thrown in). The sheets were variously advertised as 18” x 20” or 17” by 21½”. Typically, they covered 46 miles north/south, 60 – 50 miles east/west, reducing as one works north.
Special ‘District Maps’, on the same 1:200,000 scale and with blue covers, covered London District (four sheets), Liverpool & N. Wales, Birmingham & Environs and Bristol & Environs, all advertised in 1897. These were followed by Manchester & Environs and Exeter & Environs (1899 Devon & parts of Adjacent Counties); later Sheffield & Environs was added. These were 22½” by 30” (sheet size), priced 1/6d on cloth (2/6 on pegamoid: blue, later red, covers) and included the same cycling information. Again, there was no paper version. Covering twice the area of the 33-sheet maps, and between them covering most of England, Philips was competing with itself. I suspect these District maps only appeared in a Cycling Edition, in fact I’ve only ever seen cycling editions of the main series, though that may be because cyclists never throw anything away.
With the availability of the larger half-inch scale version (which was also available in paper-only format), the popularity with cyclists of the original 3m to the inch map must have waned, as the clarity of the larger scale and introduction of contour colouring outweighed the slightly greater bulk of the later map. However, it was the smaller scale that was to be most widely perpetuated and long-lived, as described in a following section.
Later Versions of the Ravenstein Mapping
Around 1905 the Ravenstein base mapping, with updates, was used for the Finger Post Strip Maps, a set of lengthy strip maps covering the main radial roads out of London, authored by G. Fothergill. Their unique feature was supplementary circular maps (at 2 inches to the mile) around junctions where the rider could potentially take a wrong turn. The scale of the main map was 3 miles to an inch. Danger hills were marked along the route, as well as intermediate distances, but no such detailing or colouring was employed elsewhere.These maps, priced at a shilling, seem to have limited success: a good map such as Ravenstein’s hardly needed enlargements at junctions on what were, after all, main roads. A further volume appearing in 1909 (2/6) covered all twelve routes, including all the junction enlargements but with small-scale route maps. A revised set of maps was issued in 1908-9, comprising London to Brighton, Exeter and York.
The use of the Ravenstein mapping was continued by Philips’ Ten-Sheet Map of England and Wales, at 1:200,000 and appearing in 1912. This had selected main roads shown at a much-exaggerated width with tick-marks at mile intervals. Other main roads were coloured in the same red but at normal width. All other roads were shown uncoloured. Later 1920s editions showed MoT “A” roads in red, “B” roads in blue, selected minor roads in dashed-blue. The choice of those in the last category was somewhat erratic: despite intended to represent the better unnumbered motorable roads, in Wales and northern England they included some then being excised from the contemporary OS and Bartholomew motor maps, as well as some routes which are still tracks today, while more worthy candidates were omitted. No contouring or colour layering was employed, “prominence is thus given to road information, the Map not being overburdened with unnecessary colours” – a polite way of saying produced on the cheap. Prices were 1/6 paper, 3/- “on calico”, for which one got a generously-sized if rather crowded map, only trustworthy in respect of main roads. These prices still applied in 1924. The series was complemented by a 50 miles round London map, on the same scale, and same price for a generous size of 35in by 30in.
Another production to use the Ravenstein mapping was a Liverpool & District map published under the name of Philip, Son & Nephew, probably as that associate company was Liverpool-based. This covered all of North Wales, as well as most of Lancashire.
In 1914, just before the First World War Philips published the Daily Mail ‘Milestone’ Motor Maps – for ‘Motorists, Cyclists & Golfers’. These were booklets in green covers including maps (Philips’ mapping of 1895 at nominal 3m to an inch, with a very few minor updates) and brief descriptive matter of towns covered, with thumbnail street maps. The map style was that of the new Ten-Sheet maps. Each map book cost a shilling and twelve covered England & Wales. The London area was also available as two large sheets, North and South, folded in case.
After WW1 the ‘Milestone’ series of booklets was reincarnated as English Roads at a Glance, jointly published by Philips and E. J. Larby. Initially only selected main roads were highlighted (red), later “A” and “B” roads were indicated in red and green respectively. As first issued, the maps were numbered from north to south, and the cover proclaimed “for Motorists, Cyclists, Golfers”. As later re-issued (post 1924), they were renumbered south to north, but with northern sheets dropped and minus the descriptive gazetteers. The cover now proclaimed “for Motorists, Cyclists, Hikers, Golfers” and the colour changed from green to brown. The addition of Hikers reflects the boom in that pastime around 1930. The map area in the example below is the same as that of the example given later, of the same mapping at the half-inch to a mile scale.
Initially a shilling, then 1/6d, the price was reduced back to one shilling, then 6d and finally to 3d, as the series was wound up in the 1930s. They had no particular appeal to cyclists (let alone ‘Hikers’) but offered a lot of map and info for the price and were a handy size for the pocket.
In 1928 the RAC switched their official maps from Philips’ half-inch to this 1:200,000 ten-sheet mapping, with attractive picture covers and contour-colouring, sheets priced at 3/6 on cloth (printed both sides). “A” and “B” roads were highlighted with their numbers, plus a more dependable selection of ‘Other Motoring Roads’. Also shown were intermediate distances and dangerous hills, the latter much reduced in number compared to the earlier Philip-branded maps. Numerous other features were highlighted. The result was a very good cycling map, despite the motorist branding. Only in the quality of minor roads was it inferior to the Bartholomew half-inch map, but you got about three times the area covered per sheet.The last sheets did not appear until 1931, but in 1937 the RAC changed again, switching its official maps to Bartholomew quarter-inch mapping.
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After the demise of the RAC series maps, in the late 1930s, Philips’ resumed publication of the 10-sheet series under their own name as Philips’ Popular Touring Map of England & Wales. Covers still bore illustrations, but now in monochrome. The maps themselves lost the contour-colouring of the RAC series but in other respects retained their style, except for the dropping of the dangerous hill symbol. A paper version was available (1/6) as well as cloth-mounted (2/6). These maps were still being perpetuated after WW2. Philips adopted the same scale – 1:200,000 - for a later series of motoring maps, about as different from the Ravenstein maps as could be – see extract at end of this section.
Philips’ Clear Print Half-inch to the Mile Map Series
From 1903 Philips produced the Clear Print Half-Inch Cycling Map of England and Wales, in 31 sheets, in cloth case 1s on paper, on cloth (green covers) 2s, mounted on cloth and dissected (red covers) 2s 6d. Sheet size was nominally 25” by 30”, but borders followed lines of longitude and latitude (see above). Initially a box on the cover read ‘Reduced from the Ordnance Survey’, but this was soon replaced with ‘Showing Rideable Roads and Distances’ – presumably in response to pressure from the Ordnance Survey. The same style covers were also used for the ‘County’ maps.The ‘Clear Print’ title was deserved, mainly because these half-inch maps were the same as the recently-published Ravenstein 3m to an inch series, photographically enlarged. The same sheet boundaries were used, save that the Isle of Man was moved onto the adjacent mainland sheet, and two oversize sheets replaced three for east Essex and Kent. As a result, the 33 sheets of the earlier series became 31. There was also at least one special sheet, a large Lake District one extending from Carlisle to Barrow in Furness. Whereas at the 3m to the inch scale the maps were available in a standard and cycling edition, the half-inch maps were only available in the one style. The major change was the introduction of contour colouring, making these maps more useful for cyclists and a visually attractive product.
These maps, with their Art Nouveau covers, attractive contour-colouring, main roads highlighted and intermediate distances (to the nearest quarter-mile) were serious rivals to the Bartholomew maps on the same scale. However, one very rarely comes across them, suggesting sales were relatively poor or the series short-lived. In any case, one contemporary source stated that only eight sheets had appeared by the summer of 1908, by which time the dominance of the Bartholomew product was unchallengeable, as even the Ordnance Survey were finding out. When one compares the clarity and attractiveness of the half-inch map, with the ugliness and cheapness of the later 3 mile to an inch versions, disfigured to highlight the important motoring roads, one can only regret the former’s premature demise, though something of the style was recreated for the 1929 RAC series. A new edition of the London area half-inch map did, however, appear in 1925. By the 1920s Philips were selling Bartholomew half-inch maps within Philips covers. It is ironic that Philips, who effectively pioneered the medium-scale cycling map in the 1880s with a product engraved by Bartholomew, should have their later product eclipsed by Bartholomew’s own.
Although the half-inch series, in its original form, was short-lived, a later reference, though hardly a complementary one, appeared in Cycling magazine in 1947:
- The sheet 10 part covered the Berwyn Hills of North Wales, and I was amazed to find the map showing "lanes" (with parallel lines, as compared with "footpaths," with single dotted lines) across routes which are nothing more or less than rough-stuff. There was marked a lane, for example, over the Bwlch Maen Gwynedd and those who know this pass will agree that this is only a footpath at the best of times. The same can be said for the Moel Sych crossing (also shown as lane), which is even more strenuous. The Nant Rhyd Wilym route from Llanarmon D. C. to the Dee Valley may, at a fairish stretch of the imagination, be taken as a lane, but this cannot be said of the route from the same village via Plas Nantyr to Cynwyd, which is marked on the map in the same way… Its crossing is a snare and a delusion, and only to be attempted by experienced rough-stuffers, or in very good weather, with plenty of time on hand. For the map-makers to note these tracks as "lanes" is, in my opinion, against all the principles of good cartography and greatly liable to trap the uninitiated into some venture which might have uncomfortable, if not dangerous, results.
To be fair, the map (which must have been an elderly copy) was no worse in this respect than contemporary-sold products from A.K. & W. Johnson, Geographia and others. The key to the maps only specified main and other roads, both as continuous lines, everything else as double pecked lines – there wasn’t a single-line ‘path’ category. When first produced fifty years earlier the notion that cyclists might like to go off-road would seem perverse, but this pecked-lines category was too wide. Indeed, a few were coloured as cycleable roads whereas others, such as the Roman Steps near Harlech, were anything but. At least, what was shown as a road could be trusted as being a road, which was not true for many other contemporary maps.
The Philips’ half-inch mapping, without contours and orography, was from 1909 used for the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) official maps on this scale, with England & Wales covered in twenty sheets, approximately 63 miles by 76, with blue covers (red mounted on cloth). They were thus larger than the original Philips’ maps and the equivalent Bartholomew maps on this scale. These later versions highlighted main roads only, but retained the very detailed distance information as well as initially the marking of dangerous hills. Included with the RAC maps was an index to hotels and repairers.
The RAC switched to the 1:200,000 10-sheet series from 1928, as mentioned above.
Other cycling publications by Philips
Some additional maps of the early cycling period were Philips’ Cyclists’ Map of the Country around London (1884, later London & Environs), and (1889) Philips’ Cyclists’ Map of 100 Miles Round London. The former was on the half-inch scale, ‘main roads distinctly coloured’. The latter was an 1840s-base map, with canals and railways prominent, nevertheless it remained in print for some decades. It was on a scale of 6 miles to an inch, eventually to become one of a four-sheet set of England and Wales on that scale, and as such still on sale in the 1920s. The firm also published two maps of the Isle of Man, by Bartholomew, one including town plans. Philips’ Tourist’s Map of England & Wales, of 1892, was engraved by Bartholomew – ‘All main roads suitable for wheel traffic are coloured and the distances between towns, marked with a red spot, are given in figures’. This was a Philips branded version of Bartholomew’s 10m to an inch map. 36” by 42”. This also appeared from 1893 as Philips' Large Scale Cycling Map of England & Wales’ with a sister map of Scotland.In 1890 Philips were advertising Specially Surveyed Roads in Scotland, by G. R. Brayshay, also advertised by Gall & Inglis. In 1899 Philips published The Cyclists’ Guide to the English Lake District, by A. W. Rumney, a prominent figure in the CTC . In 1901 this was followed by two guidebooks by the same author: The Cyclists’ Touring Guides of England, Vol 1 (South) and Vol 2 (North), both sixpence. A cycling version of its 10m to an inch map appeared in 1894, with main roads coloured and intermediate distances given, and in 1897 there appeared a 10m to an inch map of Ireland.
At the same time as it was introducing the Ravenstein-based series, and effectively in competition with them, Philips were publishing Cyclists’ Maps of the Counties of England’ (i.e. a rebranding of the series commenced in the 1880s), supplemented by Wales (3 sheets), the Lake District, Isle of Man, together with London & Environs and Lancashire on a larger scale. Yorkshire was covered in four sheets, as with the ‘County’ map. The scales would vary from sheet to sheet dependent on the area of the county.
In 1899 the Hovis Bread Company, established the previous year, issued a series of cycling maps, covering England & Wales in eight sheets (numbered south – north), initially using maps by George Philip. More information on these will be found on the Miscellaneous page.
Philips’ Cycling Map of London and 100 miles around (reissued c.1905), 6 miles to the inch, showed main roads, principal hills, distances from London, with the inclusion of selected vertical profiles of the main radial roads from London. This was still the 1840s base map mentioned earlier, eventually superseded by one of Philips’ Four-Sheet Touring Map of England & Wales (1922) on the same scale. Miscellaneous other cycling guides were also published.
A 1910 Philips’ Contoured Motor Map of the British Isles (4s. 6d) only deserves brief mention here for being so seriously inept, the Yorkshire Post’s reviewer noting that some of the roads shown were barely passable by bicycle.
In 1916 Philips acquired Charles Smith and Son, a long-established firm of map and globe producers. By this date their cycling map output appears to be mostly of products of other firms; circa 1899 they were advertising “The Ordnance Map of England & Wales, ¾ inch to a mile, 1s paper, 2s cloth, 2/6 coloured”, the provenance of which I have been unable to trace. They did however produce a half-inch to a mile Cycling Map of London & Environs, 2/6d on thin but tough linen, which although a spin-off from an older map was a competent product.
In 1947 Philips acquired the famous Stanford’s map dealers in London. Philips is now part of the Hachette publishing group, but the brand name remains in use for maps, atlases and guides.
