Two prominent names in British cartography combine on this large scale folding map of England and Wales, part of Scotland and the west part of Ireland. It was first published by Carrington Bowles and based on the surveys and information provided by Daniel Paterson.



Paterson was a career army officer who entered the army as an ensign in 1765 and became the assistant to the Quartermaster General Sir George Morrison. In 1771, he produced the first edition of "Paterson's Roads" a descriptive itinerary of the roads of England, based on military reports and army marching routes. In 1781, Paterson entered into a new partnership with Carrington Bowles to produce "Paterson's British Itinerary" a similar work but illustrated with a series of road maps. Both works were extremely popular, so much so that a celebrated copyright case was brought against Paterson and Bowles by his previous publisher.



The other famous name on the map is that of the Bowles family, a name synonymous with map and print publishing in England for over a century. The founder of the firm was Thomas Bowles in the late 17th century and its final iteration was the partnership of Bowles and Carver who worked into the 1830s.



This large folding map of England and Wales is designed to inform its purchasers about all the features considered important on a map at the time, including aristocratic seats, market towns, sea ports and cities as well as forests, lakes and rivers. However, its main emphasis is the network of roads and the distances between population centres. All of this is grandly announced on a charming cartouche which bears a female figure representing Britannia on its upper part. To the right of the cartouche is an explanation panel which differentiates between the grade of the roads as well as the mail coach routes, an increasingly important network to the logistics of the country.



The counties have been individually coloured by hand to delineate their borders. There is a small inset of the Scilly Isles above Cornwall and map also shows the west coast of Ireland, southern Scotland and northwest France although these areas are not shown with the same level of detail.



This map must have been highly successful. The earliest edition we have found was issued in 1782 with several editions throughout the late 18th century until the final one of 1810. It is interesting to note that 1782 was also the year in which John Palmer revolutionised the postal service by introducing mail coaches to replace single vulnerable riders carrying mail.

Our example is the 1810 edition. [Folded] [GB1781]