MISCELLANEOUS PUBLISHERS
Miscellaneous Cycling Map Publishers
AA (Automobile Association) and RAC (Royal Automobile Club)
These two motoring organisations have commissioned road maps branded under their own names ever since their formation. Initially these were the Bartholomew half-inch maps favoured by cyclists, later switching to smaller scales. The RAC also used Philip mapping for several years. Further details are given under those publishers.
Dunlop
A first series of Dunlop maps was produced in the 1920s, based on W. & A. K. Johnston mapping from 1889. As might be expected, these were completely out of date. The Dunlop ‘On The Road’ booklets (1920s), were low-detail strip maps produced by Burrows of Cheltenham. Later, Burrows were to publish a Dunlop-branded Motorists Atlas of the British Isles, utilising Bartholomew's 16m to an inch mapping. This also included an extract of Bartholomew's 3m to an inch map of the Lake District, and an extract of Snowdonia on the half-inch scale.Hovis
Sheets were priced at 6d (paper). The guides included with the maps (and also available separately) showed tea-shops etc. which served Hovis, and ‘CC Free Inflating Stations’ – presumably for the new-fangled pneumatic tyres rather than their riders. Locations were not marked directly on the maps.
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These maps were very short-lived, at least as employed by Hovis. In 1901 they were superseded by a new series, on cloth at 1/-, still in eight sheets, showing “roads, rivers, hills, streams, castles, woods. abbeys, railways, villages”. These were actually another reincarnation of Bacon’s ex-Cary 5m to an inch mapping. The covers now showed a large H within a bicycle wheel and titled Cycle Road Map – no longer with a reference to an inclusive guide. However, references to these maps seem to dry up after a few years, implying for one reason or another they were not perpetuated.
In 1920 Hovis published a book Where to go and how to get there. This included a series of maps: England, Wales & Isle of Man on 28 large pages (numbered north-south). Scotland was covered on two pages at a smaller scale . The mapping was by Bacon at 8m to an inch. This was periodically reissued.
A 1925 and onwards road atlas – Touring Maps of England, Wales and Scotland - published by Hovis utilised standard small-scale Bartholomew maps and was aimed primarily at motorists.
Charles Smith & Son
Charles Smith, later Charles Smith & Son, 'Map and Globe Publishers' of 63 Charing Cross, operated throughout the nineteenth century. It advertised several cycling maps, though these seem to be those by other publishers sold under the Charles Smith name. In 1888 the firm was advertising
- The Ordnance Map of England & Wales, reduced to ¾ inch to a mile [whose?]
- England & Wales in 65 sheets, 2m to an inch, price 1/6d coloured [Cruchley/ Gall & Inglis]
- England & Wales in 16 sheets, 4m to an inch, price 2/6d on cloth in case [Black/Bartholomew]
- England & Wales in 60 sheets, 4m to an inch, price 1/- on cloth in case [Pocket Series derivatives of Black/Bartholomew base mapping]
- England maps, various prices
- County maps 6d and 1/-
- 20 miles round London, ¾ inch to a mile
- 20 miles round London, 4m to an inch
- 25 miles round London, 2m to an inch
- 50 miles round London, 4m to an inch, roads coloured with dangerous and difficult places marked.
In the 1899 Cyclists’ & Motorists’ Road Book they were advertising ‘Cheap Maps’ of the following:
- The Ordnance Map of England & Wales, ¾ inch to a mile, 1s paper, 2s cloth, 2/6 coloured
- England & Wales in 60 sheets, 2m to an inch, with roads coloured, mounted on cloth and folded for pocket, 1/6. [Cruchley/ Gall & Inglis]
- Bartholomew’s New Half-inch Map of England & Wales, in 37 sheets. Coloured to show heights, mounted to fold for pocket 2/6. [Either the advert is later than thought, or not all sheets were yet published. Price higher than Bart’s own]
- Cycling Road Map of England. 5 miles to an inch, main roads specially coloured. In 7 sheets. Price on cloth, in case, 1/6. [Presumably Bacon]
- County Maps for Cyclists. With main roads coloured and other information specially prepared. Mounted on cloth to fold for pocket 1/-. [Presumably Bacon, or possibly Philip]
- Environs of London. 1 inch to a mile, in 4 sheets, mounted on cloth to fold, 3/6.
- Twenty Five Miles Round London, new edition, thoroughly revised and corrected, 2 miles to an inch. Price, with roads coloured, 2/6, mounted on cloth to fold in case, 3/6.
- Cyclists’ Map of the Environs of London extending from Ware, Tring etc on the North, to East Grinstead, Tunbridge Wells on the South; and from Henley on the West to Chelmsford, Chatham and Maidstone on the East. New edition, thoroughly corrected, ruled in Five Mile Circles, with best Cycling Roads coloured. Scale 2 miles to an inch. Folded in cover, 1s 6d, or printed on cloth, in neat pocket case, 2s 6d.
- Fifty Miles Round London. Ruled in 5 mile circles, with Main Roads coloured. Mounted on cloth to fold in case 3s 6d.
- The Roads of England and Wales. Giving a description of the Contour and Surface, with Mileages of the Main Roads and Principal Cross Roads. Notes of the Chief Cities and Towns, and References to Antiquities and Curiosities, 5s.
- Contour Road Books – North England and SE England now ready, SW England ‘in preparation’ – evidently Gall & Inglis; SW England appeared in 1900.
- Sixty Miles N of London, Sixty Miles West of London, Sixty Miles South of London – Scale 2m to an inch, Main Roads coloured. Mounted on cloth, to fold for the pocket, 2s.
- Cycling Maps of Ireland (no further details given)
W. H. Smith & Son
Although now ubiquitous in town centres, the business initially was based solely on news stalls at railway stations. One successful line was Smith's Pocket Series of maps, utilising the four miles to an inch mapping produced by John Bartholomew initially for Adam & Charles Black. These are the only cycling maps published by W. H. Smith that need concern us, and are covered fully under Bartholomew.
Edward Stanford
Edward Stanford (1823-1904) had a background in map publishing before establishing under his own name in 1853, initially at 55 Charing Cross Road then (1888) at 26 & 27 Cockspur St, Charing Cross as well as 12-14 Long Acre from 1901. In 1890 the business, now run by his son, also Edward, was incorporated as a limited company. In 1908 the business was concentrated at the famous premises at Long Acre – “The World’s Biggest Map Shop” - from which the business has only recently moved. Stanford could supply maps for any part of the world, including those from all the major British producers.Whilst engraving, printing and publishing a number of their own maps, perhaps the majority of their products were those of other publishers sold under the Stanford name.In 1874 Stanford’s acquired the maps of the long-established and well-respected firm of John Arrowsmith, nephew of and successor to Aaron Arrowsmith, including a three mile to an inch series of England & Wales. This was in 24 sheets, each 20” by 28”, in various formats priced from one to three shillings each. This it advertised as ‘Railway Maps’, with railways rather than roads highlighted, though their scale would make them suitable for cycling. Wales was also available on the same scale, on a map by John Walker.
Stanford also distributed Black’s (i.e. Bartholomew’s) 12 sheet series of quarter-inch maps of Scotland, and the Bartholomew Scottish half-inch maps.
From the 1870s Stanford produced a series of County-based guidebooks, though with little content specific to cyclists.They were later to publish John Murray’s extensive series of tourist guidebooks.
In 1876 Stanford published a set of ‘orographical’ maps, for England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland, each on the scale of 8 miles to an inch. These were coloured by height of land, being the first such maps produced covering Britain. Although intended as instructional wall maps for educational purposes, showing no roads and so far from intended for travellers, the orographic or ‘contour colouring’ system was to be widely adopted thereafter for cycling maps, as providing a simple way of indicating the hilliness or otherwise of roads, as well as a hint on the scenic interest of the terrain. It was notable that the maps were produced under the supervision of Professor A. C. Ramsay, head of the Royal Geological Survey: coloured geological maps had long been produced, often correlating with the landform, but these were specialised productions which could justify their laborious individual hand-colouring. Mass-production for the like of cycling maps required advance colour lithography – and, of course, detailed contour information which had had to await the Ordnance Survey.
In 1879, Edward Stanford advertised an
- Ordnance Survey of England in Miniature (intended specially for Bicyclists). Being a Facsimile to the minutest detail of the sheets of the New One-inch Scale Ordnance Survey Maps.
These were photographic reductions to the half-inch scale and based on the New Edition of the Ordnance Survey and used the same sheet numbering. The first sheets available were for London and the southeast. The maps were published at the suggestion of Edward S. Gaisford, a prominent London cyclist. These maps are sometimes erroneously referred to as ‘quarter scale’, which would be illegible – it is the area which is a quarter of the original map. Once folded the maps were only 7” by 2½” and cost 1 shilling. The Ordnance Survey seems to have acquiesced to this piracy – it jealously guarded its one-inch scale, but maps at other scales, however arrived at, were apparently accepted.
An 1880 advert offered a New Map of Ireland, 8m to the inch. By 1882 Stanford was advertising separate maps for North and South Wales: these seem to have been of Cruchley origin. There was a New Map of Scotland published that year, at 7.69 miles to an inch.
In 1890 Stanford was advertising the following maps of value to cyclists:
- The Bartholomew’s Large Scale Map of England & Wales on the scale of 4 miles to an inch, in 16 sheets, folded and coloured 2s, mounted on linen 3s. [the series originally produced for A. & C. Black in 1866, now advertised by various English publishers]
- Stanford’s New Map of the English Lake District, one inch to a mile – probably not the Bartholomew production, as available in both plain and coloured versions.
- Tourist’s Maps of North Wales, 3 miles to an inch, and South Wales, 3¼ miles to an inch, both including descriptive guides
- Environs of London (25 miles round), ¾ inch to a mile, various formats and prices
The route key maps included with the CTC Route Books were produced by Stanford, and printed on ‘waterproof’ paper.
Stanford nearly always used his own name on map covers, regardless of the actual source cartography; similarly ‘Stanford’s Geographical Establishment’ was the normal accreditation on the map itself. Therefore the cartographical origin of such maps has usually to be deduced from stylistic evidence. Stanford also specialised in dissected versions of Bartholomew and other maps, but in these cases generally keeping the actual printer’s name on the cover.
Between 1947 and 2001 Stanford’s was part of the George Philip group, but later became independent again. As agents for the Ordnance Survey, and publisher of maps and charts for the whole world, it was and still is one of the best-known map publishers.
J. & C. Walker
Despite the similarity of name to that of the following J. Walker & Co., these were two entirely separate companies, both only peripheral to the story of cycling maps.
John and Charles Walker followed on from their father John Walker, as geographers and engravers of maps and sea charts. They produced many of the county maps produced by the cartographers James and Charles Greenwood in the first half of the 19th century, as national atlases as well as individual maps. These were some of the finest maps available prior to the Ordnance Survey and not entirely superseded by them, as their smaller scale made them in some respects more convenient. Reproduction prints of these maps are popular.
In the 1830s the Walker brothers engraved and produced The British Atlas for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Co. This contained Greenwood county maps of England and separate maps of Wales. The county maps from this atlas were also sold individually, the standard sheet size of 34cm by 41cm necessitating a variety of scales. The same maps were also used for Hobson’s (later Walker’s) Fox Hunting Atlas: foxhunters must have made a sizeable share of mid-19th century map purchasers. The firm also produced maps for The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, whose maps were later issued by Letts and their successors, Mason & Payne and so lingered on into the cycling era. An example of the Hull district, from the Yorkshire East Riding county map, is given on the Letts page. The Letts versions of the Walker maps were also sold under the James Wyld name into the 1890s.
The Walker brothers produced Hobson’s 1843 half-inch map of Yorkshire, in four sheets, parts of which were republished as cycling maps by G. W. Bacon into the 20th century.
Both brothers died in the 1870s, but the company continued until the 1890s.
John Walker & Co.
In 1880 a different John Walker left publishers Collins, Son & Co. to set up his own publishing and stationery company at 96 Farringdon St, by 1882 at Farringdon House, Warwick Lane, London. The firm was a distributor of Bartholomew maps in the form of branded covers: it did not produce maps of its own. It had its own series of Bartholomew Pocket Maps, virtually map for map the same as the W. H. Smith series, which seems to have commenced in 1891. In 1886 John Walker & Co. were one of the publishers of The Pocket Atlas of the World by J. Bartholomew FRGS, followed in 1887 by Pocket Atlases of England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland, with maps by Bartholomew, which went through multiple editions. In 1890 appeared the Century Atlas, again by BartholomewThe firm became a limited company in 1893 producing, beside maps, business and personal stationery. In the 1900s the firm moved into picture postcards, including a series showing extracts from Bartholomew maps. This seems to have been its last involvement in map publishing.
James Wyld
James Wyld (1812 – 1887) was the middle of three generations of map makers. He took over the family business on the death of his father (also James) in 1836 and in turn was appointed to the honorary title of ‘Cartographer to the Queen’. The company produced a wide range of maps of Britain and abroad, some of the former being later adapted and branded as cycling maps. Up to three addresses were generally shown on their productions: 11-12 Charing Cross; 2 Royal Exchange and 457 Strand (1852 to 1880).
James Wyld’s Bicycle (later Cycling) Map of the Roads of Great Britain, was one of the earliest maps which were targeted at cyclists, though as this merely consisted of inserting the word ‘Bicycle’ in the title of a map traceable back to 1783 this hardly deserves the accolade. The map was originally produced by William Faden, an eminent cartographer of his generation who had published the Ordnance Survey’s early maps and supplied maps for Paterson’s Roads. It subsequently formed Mogg’s New Map of the Roads (various editions). It was reissued by Wyld with branding as a cycling map by 1881 and remained in print to about 1899, after the Wyld interests had been acquired by G. W. Bacon, and published alongside Bacon’s own England & Wales map. Scale was about 16 miles to an inch. Wyld’s New Map of the Country 25 Miles round London was a periodically-updated production of what was also originally a Faden map.
James Wyld had died in 1887, but the firm produced, in 1888, a New Cycling Road Map of S. E. England: Eighty Miles Round London. It ranged north to Sheffield, west to Birmingham, Salisbury etc. This was extracted from a more extensive map, being the SE quadrant of Wyld’s four-sheet Railway Map of England, Wales & Scotland. This had first appeared in 1846, and whilst having some patchy railway revision the roads were not updated so some late turnpike-era roads are missing. Highlighted by means of a red overlay were ‘nearest’ routes from London to all places of any importance, with their distance from London, Also shown were distances between towns, not only on these roads but many others not radial to London. Both the routes and the distances were cribbed unaltered from Cary’s Itinerary, last appearing some sixty years earlier. However, on the whole this was a competent attempt at providing a map customised for cyclists. Dangerous hills were marked by a red bar and there was a good selection of minor roads and place names. The map was dedicated to A. R. Savile (‘the Father of Military Cycling’), then chairman of the Cyclists’ Touring Club, who presumably had some involvement in its production. Scale was 1:450,000, or about 7 miles to an inch. As first issued the map was accompanied by a printed list, ‘giving the names of hotels and towns where there are clubs, consuls, machine repairers and racing tracks’.
In 1891 the firm was advertising a simiarly-named map, on the larger scale of 3½ miles to an inch – New Road Map of the Midland, Eastern, and Southern Counties, or Eighty Miles round London, showing by Colour the Main and Cross Roads, with Distances, Dangerous Hills, Railways, and Stations, with full Index of Places, Hotels, Clubs, Racing Tracks, Machine Repairers etc. The most Complete Map for Cyclists and Tourists. A wonderful-sounding product, but one I’ve never come across.
Other maps that might have found their way into the hands of cyclists were a 6-sheet Map of Ireland (engraved by J & C Walker, acquired by and published by Wyld in 1840 after the original promoter became bankrupt), still advertised in the 1880s, and Wyld’s Smaller Bicycle Map of England & Wales. Around 1890 Wyld was advertising a Cycling Map of the
Midland Districts of England, 1/6d and 3/- and the former Letts & Son county maps based on the 1830s Walker engravings .
The map plates, stock and goodwill of the company were acquired by G. W. Bacon in December 1893.
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