PLYMOUTH,DEVON-CORNWALL-1920s TOURING MAP FROM BOOT\'S IN THE TOWN-CYCLING MOTOR
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PLYMOUTH,DEVON-CORNWALL-1920s TOURING MAP FROM BOOT\'S IN THE TOWN-CYCLING MOTOR :
$12.33
VINTAGEMAP- SOLD FOR £10 ONLY- NO sale- NO POSTAGE FEE FOR 2ND CLASS UK.
seller\'scode: 150420151
AGOOD LINEN BACKED LOCAL MAP
PLYMOUTHIN DEVON
ALOCAL MAP SOLD BOOTS BOOK DEPARTMENT IN
PLYMOUTH
FOR
CYCLISTSAND MOTORISTS
BY
G.W.BACON
THEIRCYCLING AND MOTOR TOURING MAP
Thismap has, on the front cover the appliqué label of Boot\'s known nowas a chemists but then also a Bookshop and library book supplier
Printedearly in the 20th century by G.W. Bacon and Co Ltd of 127 the Strandfor the local books seller, lending library and chemists “BootsLtd” from the Devon Port Town.
Thismay have been a bespoke map ordered by Boots Plymouth to sell eitherto local townspeople exploring the locale by bicycle or motor car orfor visitors to the town. It may have been sold in several outletssuch as the Station Bookshop, independent bookshops and stationers ofthe town and also Boots. The shop adds its appliqué label to thefront cover and in so doing obscures some printed detail
Itis a Best Linen Backed map with a very interesting cartographichistory and now quite rare for such a local and specific use.
Themap measures 19 inches by 14 ½ inches
Theturn of the century railways of Plymouth and the district are printedin The manner of Bacon maps- two parallel lines divided into squarecells by cross lines. The stations are bold dots.
Plymouthis here reached by the Grew Western railway coming in from the eastand from Totnes. A line runs north from there up the Tavy Valley witha side branch running to Princetown on the Moor and presumablyserving the Prison there. Another line runs south east to Brixtonwhere it terminates.
Anotherline runs north up the Tamar with a branch running west toCallington and due north to Okehampton.
Westfrom the cuty the railway runs over Brunel\'s famous Saltash Bridgeinto Cornwall to St German\'\'s Liskeard and onwards west.
Thecity is not dead centre to the map but off-set to the south eastallowing all Cornwall to be shown with the tip of cornwall includedon an inset map at top left- as a consequence the part of the countyfrom St Ives to Helson is repeated and appears on both the inset andmain map.
TheRailway companies are not named, but at this date the dominantcompanies would have been the Great Western and the Southern Railway(or its predecessor)
THECOVERS:
Thecovers float- and are not hinged.
Theyare thin card and red, printed black and the front cover says:
“ MOUNTEDON CLOTH
BACON\'S
CYCLINGAND MOTORING
MAPOF
PLYMOUTHDISTRICT
9dCLOTH net.”
Thenthe appliqué label which says
“Boots:Book Department Nottingham, Sheffield, Lincoln, Brighton, Cambridge&c.”
Printedas above in red on a black background.
Theback cover advertises Bacons new series of “Waistcoat Pocket RoadMaps “ with main roads specially coloured” Plymouth is one of the100 titles listed.
Themap folds into18 sections
The map foldsinto 18 sections and is pocket sized when folded at 5 ½ x 3 ½inches.
The map is ingood order and best quality with its linen back. There are some pinholes at the junction of the folds.
The cover haswear and has creases- it has protected the map within well- It ishinged. The insides of the covers are plain.
The map isalmost certainly lithographic; the recommended roads are ochre andthe rest of the map is monochrome black and white. It is evident thatthe base is a reduction of an ordnance Survey of the region and hereit is printed at 5 inches to the mile. There is a ten mile squaregrid.
The Region youare supposed to explore from Plymouth by bicycle or early motor car seems adventurous-including the entire county of Cornwall
The extremitiesof the map (on land)are:
NW: the southwest- north east coast line of Cornwall- Welcombe is the most northwesterly town.
NE: Rackenfordnorth of Exeter
SE: Startpoint and then north east round to Brixham
SW: LizardHead- or arguably Tol Pedn Penwith on the very tip of Cornwall.
In the centreeast of the map is dartmoor- strictly called Dartmoor Forest and thehatching of the hills and tors shows that the OS base here is old,Pre National Grid, Pre Contours- this base may be very old- even preVictorian and it has the odd characteristic of being difficult toread with the flanks of hills hatched in engraved lines it is notinstantly easy to tell which is high ground and which is valley.
Branch lineswhich end in terminus stations include those to:
KINGSBRIDGE
DARTMOUTH
BRIXHAM
MORETONHAMPSTEAD
ASHBURTON
PRINCETOWN
BRIXTON
TORRINTON TOMERTON ( a narrow gauge railway)
BUDE
CALLINGTON
STONEHOUSE
EAST LOOE
LISKEARD
STONEHOUSE
PADSTOW(perhaps a narrow gauge line from St Breock)
FOWEY
NEWQUAY
FALMOUTH
ILLOGAN(PERHAPS A NARROW GAUGE LINE TO THE NORTH COAST)
HELSTON
ST IVES
PENZANCE.
This iscertainly the most extensive railway network for the West countrypeninsula and much more extensive that the mainline skeleton now inplace. The possible narrow gauge lines are judged by the size of thegraphic- noticeably smaller than that of the other lines.
The history of this cartography.
TheOrdnance Survey produced engraved plates in about 1820-50 which wereacquired by a company called Cary and Cary- legitimately or not, Ihave never established.
Manycompanies produced maps on the OS base- Cruchley, Gall and Inglis,Bacon, Bartholomew and others appear under names such as Lett\'s, W HSmiths. The base plates are always old and often from an altogetherdifferent period. The reason for this “adaptation” was threefold. The Ordnance Survey maps were slow to add railways and thus aniche was created- particularly exploited by Cruchely. Secondly OSmaps were expensive and companies reduced the size and price. Thirdlythey were bulky and inconvenient- particularly for cyclists anddrivers of carriages and motors-
Someprinters acknowledge the OS and are evidently licensed-
Lett\'s and Bartholomew are examples- others never do or used ambiguouswords such as “Ordnance maps”.
Herethe base map looks 1820-1880 with cross hatching for high ground andtree symbols for forests. It is evident that the railways were addedat a later date to the base map as their manner is different, thelettering of the stations is heavier and the black dots for thehalts is not like the higher key base map. The original map wouldhave been engraved and then electrotyped in about 1852. here thisreduced version is lithographed – but it is just possible thatsomeone is tipping in the recommended roads by hand- though they arevery neat so I favour a lithographic plate for the ochre roads.
ROADS
Hereis the ambiguity of such a multi layered map: the base roads arethose of circa 1820-1880 and here they are being used for cyclistsmotorists and carriages decades later. So G W Bacon and Boots ofPlymouth recommend routes which would not have been practicable atthe time of the base map- and may not have even existed- an examplehere might be that from St Teath to St Minver, and that Moorlandroad from Sampford to Moreton Hampstead which seems not to have beena full road at the age of the base map.
Thefundamental difference between Boots and Bacon\'s suggestions andthose of a modern cyclists map is that they keep the cyclists to themain metalled roads of their day: where as today the tourer would bedirected away from them- for they would be busy and dangerous.
Herecommends only two high moor roads; perhaps there were and are onlytwo. There is an interesting small circuit near “Daddys”Torquay, and the road to Newquay is one of the few which is not acircuit- like the railway you have to come back the way you came. The two focal points of the suggested cycle roads are Launceston,Exeter on the extreme Eastern edge and Plymouth.
PLYMOUTH
Onthis map there is a plethora of railway stations around Plymouth. Icount 22 or 23 within a couple of miles of the town centre. Thecolouring of the inlet of the Tamar is odd at Plymouth- it is shadednorth of the Saltash bridge and black south of it, making the actualshape of the tidal waters difficult to read. Drakes island is named.There are seven railway stations within a ½ mile of Ford to thenorth of the town. Stoke, Compton, For, Kings Tamerton, Saltram andPlympton are the marked outlying villages of Plymouth. Fiverecommended cycle or tour roads leave the town in the directs of StGermans, Callington, Buckland Monachorum, Ivybridge, and Modbury.
Plymouthwas greatly damaged in air raids over a quarter of a century afterthis map was sold. It lends its name to the second colony establishedby English emigres in the Americas, for they sailed from here. Thetown has shifted, originally it was unambiguously on the Plym River,but that silted up and traders were forced to its mouth and onto theTamar estuary which still had open water. The smaller estuary east ofthe town is the Cattewater. The breakwater which renders the harboursafe from gales is marked on this map.
THEREARE THREE BOOTS SHOPS IN PLYMOUTH TODAY- in Mutley plain, MorsheadRoad and Claremont Street- but it is unknown which, if any, of thoseexisted in the 1920\'s when this local map was sold.
ANINTERESTING VINTAGE CYCLING AND MOTORING MAP
BASED ON
PLYMOUTH
ANDSOLD BY
BOOTS IN THE TOWN HIGH STREET
ARARER LOCAL MAP PRINTED BY G. W. BACON THE LONDON CARTOGRAPHER
REGIONALSALE- ONE OF 100 SUCH LOCAL MAPS WHICH EACH HAD SEVERAL VERSIONS ORDERED BY LOCAL COMMISSIONING SHOPS AND BUSINESSES.
CYCLINGAND MOTOR TOURING IN THE ENGLISH WEST COUNTRY- FROM PLYMOUTH.
XXXXXXXX
GEORGE W. BACON- CARTOGRAPHER
George Washington Bacon was a map-makerand seller. His company was based in London in the late 19th centuryand early 20th century. He specialised in rail and road maps, forcyclists at first, and later for early motorists too: He used oldOrdnance Plates either directly or via Weller\'s steel plates, whichhe produced at 1/2” to the mile or smaller and added his owngraphic for the railways.
In fact the 1” Ordnance plates wouldhave been reductions to 1/2” but the 1/4” Weller plates wouldhave been enlarged to 1/2”.
George Washington Bacon and born in 1830 in Lockport, NewYork in the United States of America. He died as late as 1922, havinglived to the age of 92. He based his printing and cartographicbusiness in London and, on his maps one finds two addresses:
Bacon operated as G.W. Bacon & Co. of 127 in the Strand,London, from 1870 onwards (as an independent cartographer) but latermaps carry the address: Norwich Street, Fetter Lane, London (whenowned by the parent company Johnston of Edinburgh). Some sourcesstate that he moved to England in 1860 or 1861.
To begin with he concentrated on maps of the capital and hisbusiness grew naturally as an extension of travellers\' needs to andfrom London. Another of his early enterprises was the production ofmaps and battle plans for those interested in the course of theAmerican Civil War.
His many early enterprises gain him no great success and in 1867he was bankrupt. Following that he concentrated on map making.
He also produced atlases and the base maps for these came fromEdward Weller\'s Weekly Dispatch Atlas. Of course Weller was not asurveyor- and the ultimate base maps were early Ordnance 1 inchplates. He was not pirating Weller\'s plates but had managed topurchase them- they were steel- the medium of choice for masspublication of intaglio- where as other engravers of Weller\'s time,such as Walker, had been faithful to copper.
Bacon\'s chef d\'oeuvre was “TheNew Ordnance Atlas of the British Isles” published from 1868 to1911. The reason it ended in 1911 was that, in that year, theOrdnance Survey tightened up considerably on copyright and licenseduse of its maps under stricter conditions, notably: that the scale bechanged: that their sanction be stated on the map sheet, and: thatthe words “Ordnance” or “Ordnance Survey” were not used inthe title or on the cover. It was in 1911 that Batholomew also had toretitle his maps as “New Reduced Surveys” to comply with the newrules and did so with considerable bad grace because he and othersconsidered the Ordnance Survey to be a publicly funded body whichshould not enforce copyright. By this 1911 date Bacon maps were ownedby Johnston\'s of Edinburgh and had been since the turn of thecentury.
In 1893 George W Bacon purchased the cartographical business of J.Wyld, through whom he obtained a library of map plates of London.
In 1900, the Bacon Company was purchased itself by anotherEdinburgh cartographer: W. & A.K. Johnston, who continued toprint the maps as G. W. Bacon. Johnston were the first company toconcentrate primarily on the motor map and they used “G. W. Bacon”as a house marque as late as 1956.
G.W. Bacon\'s links with Scottish cartographers was strong andlater maps, produced when under the control of Johnston of Edinburgh,can bear the copyright of John Bartholomew, so it is evident thatthere was much exchange of material and co-production amongst thecartographers of that city- notably Bartholomew, Gall and Inglis andJohnston.
Generally, Bacon might be seen in the same light at Gall andInglis, and Cruchley: printers who noticed that the Ordnance map wasexpensive and conservative and that, in the late 19th century, therewas a growing body of travellers and adventurers who which topurchase a guide map without paying OS prices. They also needed a mapwhich was of a format compatible with cycling or train travel.
Ordnance maps were, in the 19th century, directed by seniorofficers of the Royal Engineers-usually Lieutenant-Colonels- andengraved and printed first at the Tower of London and then atSouthampton. Though fine as cartography- their raison d\'etre wasmilitary and those sold to the general public were usually ordered,bespoke from firms such as Smith, Praed & Sifton and EdwardStanford, who would dissect, mount on best linen, and board inmarbled boxed covers. This was not a railway book-shop trade and thusthe commercial vacuum created was filled by Cruchley first and Baconlater.
Bacon maps were either paper or linen backed. I have not seen themdissected and mounted. There is an ambiguity about his cycle mapsbecause the base survey is often 70 years earlier than the suggestedroads and one is looking at a triple layered print. Late Georgianperhaps for the base map, 1870s for Bacon\'s railways and nearer 1900for the suggested cycle roads. Obviously those suggested routes donot always fit the roads of the base map and this mismatch provides adeal of accidental data about how transport changed through the 19thcentury.
The railways are usually marked with a ladder like Graphic. Thestations are generally added as a black dot and named in Bacon\'s boldblack script; this is different to the script of the base map. Insome cases the Ordnance place names are underlined if they coincidewith a station: but the interest here is how seldom that occurred-and one notices, through Bacon\'s publications, how the 19th centuryrailways ill served towns and villages, and how urban growth migratedto the railways rather than railways serving the towns. The OS addedrailways when their plates were electrotyped. This began in 1852 butthe more general date one sees for an OS electrotype of the 1 inchseries is 1870-1878. Thus, it may be seen that George Bacon must havebeen using base plates prior to this period.
On the later maps, when Johnston owned the company- Bacon mapsexperiment with MOT road numbers- usually they are used without aletter prefix (A, B, T). The MOT experimented with road numbering in1913- abandoned the project, and then re-instigated it after theGreat War, in 1919.
There is an interesting link between George W Bacon and theTemperance Movement. Cycling must have been seen as one of the toolsthough which the working people of the great industrial towns couldbe tempted away from a culture of drinking. Bacon Maps often hadadvertising by Fry\'s (Cocoa), and hoteliers such as Tranter\'s(Temperance Hotels). In the Cyclists\' Touring Club guides about 50%of the recommended hotels and guest houses were “temperance”institutions. Fry\'s and the other great confectionery families wereQuaker and strong backers of the movement.
Early Bacon Cycle map covers show Victorian cyclists and a mottoand verso advertisement links that image with the Imperial RoverCycle. Later Cycle maps often show a generic image of a distant townwith smoking chimneys, a lady studying her map by her bicycle and, inthe middle ground, a sports cyclist. A milepost announces “4miles”. The image demonstrates the market: industrial workingpeople, escaping their urban homes to explore the countryside. Later,on these maps and on later 1920s ones, a motor car is added to thebackground. Cartographers are aware of impending change; but the mapswithin the covers call themselves “Cycling Surveys” still, andnone of their features seem particularly relevant to the earlymotorist.
Another standard advertisement seen in Bacon maps is that forCross Channel traffic via Newhaven by “Brighton and French StateRailways”: a photograph shows a car being winched aboard a ferry atNewhaven. Presumably “the Brighton Railway” means the L.B.S.C.R.
Later still, road maps are for “Motoring and Cycling” and thescale reduced to ¼ inch to the mile. On these maps, which are fromthe period when Johnston owned the firm, the copyright at bottomright cites John Bartholomew and Son, Edinburgh: so presumablyJohnston and Bartholomew were working together and perhaps conspiringto circumvent the 1911 Ordnance copyright restrictions.
Bacon Maps were often bespoke produced for a local retailer-usually a bookseller or stationer in a rural town, who had his towncentral to the map and concentric 1 or 2 mile rings drawn from it toaid the tourer or cyclist. Gall and Inglis also used this device. Onthese maps, railways were always prominent. The implication is thatthe cyclist arrived by train and perhaps used the train to takehis/her machine to the start point of the cycle tour. It isinteresting that the “chosen roads” do not generally run to thecoastal resorts- sometimes these are avoided; the implication is thatthe cycle tourer was of a different stratum of society to the resortholiday-maker and interested in different things: old churches,castles, historic towns, ancient sites and picturesque villages.Perhaps the “Temperance” bias of Bacon and his advertisers sawthe seaside resort as a inadvisable temptation rather than a boon.
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PLYMOUTH,DEVON-CORNWALL-1920s TOURING MAP FROM BOOT\'S IN THE TOWN-CYCLING MOTOR :
$12.33