DATING MAPS
How to Date Cycling Maps
NB See also Timeline for dating Bartholomew’s half-inch maps, on the Bartholomew page, which includes dating information specific to those maps. Information on other publishers is given on their respective pages.
Dating maps can be a frustrating exercise, but the detective work can be rewarding. One is really seeking three dates:
- the production date of the base map (itself perhaps incorporating data from earlier maps), usually as the initial copper engraving for the period we are considering,
- the date of last revision (usually only selective, such as new railways), and
- date of sale (from cover style and information, attribution on the map and other hints).
These notes hopefully assist in this task.
Dating Clues on the Map Sheet Itself
The obvious starting point is to see if there is an actual date of publication given. This is generally the case in the 20th century, but rarely given on earlier publications. Bartholomew, the dominant producer of cycling maps, only started directly dating its maps in 1911-12, and even then as inconspicuously as possible. Some other publishers such as Geographia used the ‘Cumberland’ code, in which c = 1, u = 2, m = 3 etc such that CNMB = 1934, CC/UU = November (19)22. Others, such as Gall & Inglis and G. W. Bacon, just used a print reference which cannot be directly tied to a year.
Except for the earliest maps of this period, producers were dependent on the progress of the Ordnance Survey for accurate and up-to-date information. It should be remembered that once an Ordnance Survey First Edition one-inch sheet had been issued, its revision was only piecemeal, significant changes being confined to new railways, and that for most parts of Britain the base O.S. mapping predated virtually all railways, other than a few early lines. Only from around 1890, with the production of the second and subsequent editions, was the O.S. map thoroughly and regularly updated. In the interim other map producers had to obtain information on new railways from maps and plans deposited as part of the statutory procedures for obtaining the necessary Acts of Parliament, and subsequent variations.
With particular reference to Ordnance Survey maps, the dates given on them throughout the 19th century were generally those of first publication, which could be decades earlier than that of the revised sheet. Even on 20th century O.S. maps footnotes would indicate revisions several years after the stated date of publication. At first an explicit footnote would give the date of road revisions, which are those of most interest to the historian of cycling, e.g. ‘Roads revised to 3/27’. Later such notes were abbreviated to such as R34, M36, indicating roads revised to 1934, minor changes to 1936. Later even these were dropped, the only information being a latest reprint date, e.g. 4000/38 or 4038, or the uninformative ‘Reprinted with minor changes’
The easiest way to date maps of the first part of the period we are concerned with, i.e. maps published from around 1870 to the First World War, is from railway information. Changes were always happening and dates of railway and station openings may readily be found from internet searches (railway nerds greatly outnumber map nerds). Often there is a discrepancy in accuracy and neatness on maps between railways extant when the base map was drawn and those added later. Later additions may also overwrite text on the base map, a situation which would have been avoided if both had been drawn contemporarily, so giving a clue to first production date. The naming of railways is an unreliable guide as these were often retained on maps long after a particular company had disappeared through amalgamation.
Careful examination of Victorian maps will often show corrections to railway alignments, with the originally-assumed alignment imperfectly scratched out. As well as showing routes actually built, many maps show projected railways that never materialised, but nevertheless can be just as useful as dating tools. On obtaining an Act of Parliament for a line’s construction, the promoting company normally had a finite period in which to complete it, after which it would have to apply for an extension Act, or have its powers lapse. Even so, there may be five or ten years between a railway obtaining its Act and actually completing its line, so it may have been added to a map several years before its actual opening, and often inaccurately.
Information on the opening and closing of lines and stations was given in Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, published monthly, so there was no excuse for map publishers not to be fully up to date. Some branches had a very short life as passenger lines, in some cases less than a year. The closure of under-performing wayside stations was not a Beeching-era phenomenon, it is as old as the railways themselves. Many terminus stations such as Lancaster, Oxford, Cowbridge, Sheffield (Wicker) and Godalming became redundant when lines were extended but remained shown on many maps, giving a marker for earliest printing. However, as a cautionary note, Milford station in Salisbury was marked on the Bartholomew half-inch map first appearing in 1899 despite having closed to passengers 40 years before, whilst the record must be held by Bricklayers Arms terminus, in SE London, which saw its last scheduled passenger train in 1852, but was still marked on W. & A. K. Johnston maps in the 1970s.
By far the most reliable dating indicators are in fact where new stations have been opened on existing lines, or stations have a change of name, as such changes took place without long lead times and were recorded promptly in Bradshaw and the local press.
Mapmakers would be keen to appear as up-to-date as possible, and in many cases ‘jumped the gun’, showing road or rail proposals as completed which in fact never materialised. To take some examples from Bartholomew maps, an independent station in Cambridge, proposed terminus of the 1860s line from Bedford, but one never actually constructed, was still appearing on their maps decades later. The Kent half-inch sheet of c. 1897 showed ‘Proposed Channel Tunnel’ (there were some exploratory works undertaken in the 1880s). We are still awaiting the proposed railway tunnel from Lymington to the Isle of Wight, shown on maps circa 1910. The Bartholomew Harrogate sheet long showed a reservoir in Colsterdale, near Masham, which was never built.
Perhaps the most extreme examples of misplaced anticipation by mapmakers actually apply to roads, as the reversal from roadbuilding to railways in the 1840s was very abrupt. It also meant that many early cycling maps still relied on this mapping and included roads projected but never built, or omitted roads built in the final flourish of the turnpike era. Several examples have been referred to on other pages, in particular The Black Museum. Opening dates for new roads in pre-motoring days are hard to come by: these don’t seem to have been announced or celebrated in the manner of railway openings, though new road bridges generally were.
Although new inter-urban roads were few in the Victorian era, a number of new Thames road bridges were constructed in London, and elsewhere bridges replaced ferries, e.g. at Queensferry, near Chester (1889). One note of caution: many bridges, including several of the Thames bridges, were first opened as privately-sponsored projects, and their subsequent freeing from tolls are often recorded in the press as ‘opening’. In Scotland the great landowners funded new roads to improve access to their estates (whilst trying to close others that traversed their deer forests). Special mention might be made of the ‘Duke’s Road’, now the A821 north from Aberfoyle, which was built in 1885 as a toll road to cater for tourists to The Trossachs. For a time in its early days cyclists were prohibited but it is now a popular cycling route (motor vehicles were only admitted in 1932).
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The second half of the nineteenth century saw public health measures such as the building of isolation hospitals for infectious diseases, and asylums for the mentally insane. These establishments, many the size of small towns, show up on maps due to their (then) rural positions. . A comprehensive index to mental health institutes is given in
1888 saw the Copyrights, Designs & Patents Act, leading to the words ‘Copyright’ appearing more widely on maps. However, it could easily be added to existing maps without the map itself necessarily being revised so its absence is more significant than its inclusion.
1889 saw the abolishment of the old English administrative areas of Hundreds and Wapentakes though their names were still to show up even on motoring maps. At the same time county boundaries were revised to remove anomalies such as isolated parts of one county falling within the area of another (a few examples survived until the 1970s). Similar and more extensive changes were made in Scotland, principally in 1890-91, when changes included Haddingtonshire, Edinburghshire and Linlithgowshire becoming East-, Mid- and West- Lothian respectively.
From around 1900 many inner-suburban stations were closed due to tram competition; by contrast numerous rural ‘halts’ were later opened elsewhere to combat motorbus competition. By the time of the First World War Britain’s railway network was largely complete. The war resulted in a few local railway lines being closed to passengers (some temporarily) and very few new lines were opened after that date.
The First World War saw a substantial increase in map prices: improvements in technology and booming sales had previously given forty years of static or even reducing prices, but these were nearly to double in the space of a few years. It was after the First World War that plans for new arterial roads for the ever-increasing volume of motor traffic began to evolve into actual construction, and road rather than railway progress becomes the best dating tool. But around London new housing developments resulted in many railway stations being added.
The full use of Ministry of Transport (MoT) classifications and/or road numbers on a map dates its publication to about 1922 or later (the official list was published in 1923). Although many mapmakers were quick to highlight ‘MoT Class 1’ roads, or "A" roads, by colour and/or width, they did not all actually show the numbers for some time: the class 2 "B" roads took even longer to appear. In the new Irish Free State classification introduced about the same time as the United Kingdom’s was into Trunk and Link roads ("T" and "L"), changed in the 1970s to National, Regional and Local ("N", "R" and "L"). The setting up of the Irish Free State in 1922 saw the introduction of ‘The Border’ to maps as well as numerous reversions of anglicised or English place names back to earlier Erse versions, though British mapmakers were in no hurry to change them.
1923 also saw the amalgamation of railway companies into the ‘Big Four’ (London, Midland & Scottish, London & North Eastern, Southern, and Great Western, the last alone retaining the name of its major constituent), with the new initials appearing on maps. This was followed by a general consolidation of duplicating lines. The 1930s onwards saw the closure of unremunerative lines, a process peaking in the 1960s. However, as many lines were retained in whole or part for freight, map evidence can be unreliable.
The period after the First World War saw new radial road routes out of London such as the present A40 and A12. Elsewhere, little new major road building took place until the Depression years, when projects such as the East Lancashire Road, the Glencoe new road in Scotland and inter-valley routes in South Wales were initiated, partly to alleviate unemployment. By contrast, in Ireland road building had continued throughout the 19th century, initially as employment schemes by which the poor could earn money for food (famine roads). In fact, the relief of unemployment was a major impetus for new roads from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the 1930s.
Other developments from the Victorian period onwards appearing onmaps include reservoir schemes to serve the expanding towns and cities. The most prominent examples are Thirlmere in the Lake District, Lake Vrynwy and the Elan Valley scheme in Wales, and numerous water supply and later hydro-electric schemes in Scotland. The routes of the conduits to their supplied cities commonly appeared as well. These projects tended to have long gestation periods and so could appear on maps some time before actual completion: the Haweswater reservoir scheme obtained parliamentary approval in 1919 but it was 1941 before the water reached Manchester’s taps. One might also mention the Manchester Ship Canal (1894) and dock expansion at many ports.
Since the 1930s the expansion of the road network and the closure of railways gives sufficient information by which date of publication of a map may be deduced, even if the map does not display the date directly. It is finding out the original publication of the base map, which may be decades before, that requires more detective work.
1930 saw a boom in recreational walking, or ‘hiking’ as it was popularly dubbed. The term ‘hiking’ only appeared from America in 1927, the usual British term being walking or rambling. This 1930 boom led map-makers to name ‘hikers’ as potential users on their cover blurb, an odd but effective dating tool. The first Youth Hostels opened in 1931 and were quickly added to most mapmakers’ productions. Hostel opening and closure dates may be found on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youth_hostels_in_England_and_Wales
1939 saw the outbreak of war and the temporary abandonment of several road schemes actually started (e.g. the Northwich Bypass, Cheshire, Dartford Tunnel) or cancelled not to return (e.g. the Lyndhurst Bypass, Hants and the southern part of the Kilmarnock Bypass). Several map-producers had already marked these on their maps. The war itself saw restricted numbers of maps on sale and poorer quality paper, together with price increases. The metric National Grid was to appear, first on Ordnance Survey ‘War Revision’ one-inch maps.
During and following World War 2 inflation saw a steady increase in map prices. From the 1950s onwards the number of new road schemes and railway closures makes dating maps relatively straightforward.
Dating Clues on the Map Cover
The above gives information on dating available from the map itself. The map cover and any enclosures may also be a useful dating source, through the style, price, details of the publisher and references to other available maps. The initial purchaser may have obligingly left his name and the date of purchase! I have given publishers’ addresses and their date range on their dedicated pages, as these details often changed. The name of the publisher may have changed slightly, such as on their becoming a limited company. I have given details with examples of most of the changes in cover style.
In any dating attempt care must be taken, as cover and map are rarely exactly contemporary: in fact there may be several years difference. A new print run of a map may be inserted in an older style of cover to use up old stock, similarly a new style of cover may be used for a map from an earlier print run which was selling slowly. Quite often the title of the map differs from that on the cover. From the early 1900s ‘Cycling’ maps came to be described on covers as ‘Cycling & Motoring’ maps, then ‘Motoring & Cycling’ maps, though an older designation might still be used on the maps themselves. With few exceptions, any map described purely as a ‘Cycling’ map will predate 1900, one giving precedence to cycling rather than motoring to pre-1910. It is worth reiterating that ‘driving’ roads named on early maps relate to carriage driving, not motoring.
1900 saw the Net Book Agreement. Under it, nearly all publishers agreed to refuse to supply booksellers who undercut other outlets by selling books and maps below their stipulated ‘net’ price. Any reference to ‘net’ (or ‘nett’) price must therefore indicate a cover printed in1900 or later, though the practice of marking prices as such gradually fell out of use.
1917 saw London central postal districts, originally established in 1870, being subdivided by the addition of a number, thus EC became EC1, EC2 etc. The extra digit is often found in the publisher’s address on the cover, but not on the less up-to-date map.
Despite the spread of the internet, information on historic maps is patchy, and often seems to be recycled from just the same few sources. There are many websites now displaying old maps which may be compared with the reader’s copy, though in not all cases is their dating wholly correct. One principal source of information on changes that were to appear on maps is The British Newspaper Archive (BNA), through which the date of almost any major development can be traced. Like all such archives this is a subscription service. Other such archives are available, including those of the the National Libraries of Wales (for pre-1920) and Scotland. There are various Irish websites, though the BNA also covers Ireland. Most national papers will not be found on these sites, having their own individual archive sites.
Archives can give dates for details appearing on maps, but may also give more direct dates of map publication. Many publishers were in the habit of supplying gratis copies of newly-published maps to newspapers and periodicals (who generally replied with fawning reviews, recycling the publisher’s blurb). In many cases these might be new editions of older maps so caution is required: the description ‘new’ in relation to maps is meaningless.
If asked nicely, the author can supply an Excel database listing the dates of civil engineering and other developments (roads, railways, individual stations etc) of use in dating cycling maps.
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