A topographical map of Devonshire, including parts of the adjacent counties

Description

"Etched by J. Palmer." Visual scale [150 mm = 12 miles approximately]. "Reduced from a survey made by order of the Board of Ordnance under the direction of Col. Mudge." In 1811, as a military precaution during the Napoleonic wars, the Ordnance Survey prohibited the sale of their maps to the general public. Nevertheless, in 1813, a private London map seller by the name of John Cary, made publicly available this reduced version of the 1809 Ordnance Survey map. He argued that since the public paid for the Ordnance Survey, it had a right to publish copies of the OS maps on scales suited to their own needs. Production of the map may have been stopped by the government, as the late Professor William Ravenhill of the University of Exeter believed the only existing copy of this map to be held in the West Country Studies Library, Devon, England. It is recorded, however, that Cary sent Robert Clifford a copy for his evaluation and comments. Clifford's copy in McMaster's collection may therefore be the only other one to have survived. Acquired in 1969 by McMaster University as part of the Lord Cholmondeley collection.