The control-freakness of an early map collector

I just encountered an explanation of the principles behind an attempt at assembling an exhaustive map collection in the mid-eighteenth century. The collector was John Innys, a book seller turned gentleman. Among the books he published with his elder brother William was the Atlas maritimus et commercialis; Or, a General View of the World, so Far as Relates to Trade and Navigation: Describing All the Coasts, Ports, Harbours, and Noted Rivers, According to the Latest Discoveries and Most Exact Observations. with a Sett of Sea-Charts, Some Laid Down after Mercator, but the Greater Part According to a New Globular Projection, Adapted for Measuring Distances (as Near as Possible) by Scale and Compass, and Authorized by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great-Britain. The Use of the Projection Justified by Dr. Halley (London: James and John Knapton, William and John Innys, 1728), whose extensive geographical text was the work of Daniel Defoe (Thrower 1978, 226; Reinhartz 1997, 88). In 1749, Innys wrote a letter to a friend, explaining his exhaustive plan for his collection. I transcribe the letter below.

Context: Richard Gough’s Early Map History

The letter was printed in a curious short work:

An Essay on the Rise and Progress of Geography in Great-Britain and Ireland; Illustrated with Specimens of Our Oldest Maps. London: printed by J. Nichols, 1780.

I was unaware of this work until just a couple of days ago, when a colleague sent me a note about it. Although anonymous, it was clearly the work of the British antiquary, Richard Gough. Gough’s accounts and facsimiles of early maps are a significant part of his magnum opus:

Gough, Richard. British Topography; Or, an Historical Account of What Has Been Done for Illustrating the Topographical Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland. 2 vols. London: T. Payne and Son, and J. Nichols, 1780.

This work forms the pivot from chapter 2 to chapter 3 in my current book ms, so I was immediately interested in this newly encountered short work.

The Essay on the Rise and Progress of Geography proves to be a reprinting of material scattered through the British Topography, not only the dedicated sections dealing with the maps, charts, and views of Britain and England (pp. 1: 57–113), Scotland (2: 575–606), and Ireland (2: 765–69), but also notices of local chorographical and urban maps scattered through the entire book. They have been intermingled in an attempt to create a strictly chronological account of all of the maps, actually destroying the rough narrative provided in the main chapters. Some parts of the map text in the British Topography have been omitted, notably Gough’s criticism of recent one-sheet county maps by “Bowen, Kitchen, and other modern makers” that, “notwithstanding [their] assertions…that their maps are framed from actual new surveys, there is scarce a single one which does not abound with faults” (1: 108). Some of the content has been rewritten and some of Gough’s discursive notes have been moved into the main text. Some new material has been added, which includes Innys’s letter.

The result is a curious hybrid that blends: the antiquary’s celebration of national and local identity; existing histories of geographical mapping (e.g., Robert de Vaugondy 1755; Blair 1768); and Gough’s own concerns to create a history of specifically British map making in line with the then new “philosophical history” of stadial changes in particular cultures.

John Innys and His Map Collection

Not that much is readily known about John Innys. The LC authority files give his dates as 1658–1762, which is an excessively long life for the eighteenth century, although not impossible; or is the period during which a book of sermons by one John Innys was reprinted? (I daresay much more information is available in the secondary literature about the book trade in eighteenth-century England.) Anyway, by the 1740s, Innys was collecting his huge collection, from Redland Court, in Goucestershire. It was eventually acquired in the 1750s by Thomas Coke (1697–1759), earl of Leicester, who moved it to Holkham Hall, Norfolk. According to a Holkham Hall library blog (also the source of the image in the blog-roll), the collection is currently being catalogued.

Helen Wallis gave some basic information about the collection in a couple of brief articles (Wallis 1991, 1993). The entire collection bears a grand title—“A General System of Cosmography, or Elements of Astronomy and Geography, Illustrated by Maps, Plans and Views Collected from the most Eminent Authors, Ancient and Modern by John Innys”—that matches the grandness of the collection and Innys’s grandiose plans. It contains no less than 113 folio volumes that contain 5,767 maps, 7,799 prints and 64 manuscripts. Wow!

I think that I shall have to take a road trip, as my core family live about an hour away!

Transcription of John Innys to “a friend,” 5 June 1749

Note: the material preceding the ‘/’ is found both in Gough’s British Topography (1: 109) and in the Essay on the Rise and Progress of Geography. The transcription is taken from the Bodleian Library’s digital scan, accessed through Eighteenth-Century Collections Online.

iv/

The late Mr. John Innys, of Redland-court., near Bristol, younger brother to William Innys the bookseller, and some time a partner in his business, had collected in a number of volumes all the maps, plans, views, &c. he could meet with for the whole world, but without specifying the maker or engraver; and had compiled an exact index referring to every place in each. This collection is now in the library at Holkham. / The letter here subjoined will shew Mr. Innys’s plan.

Copy of a Letter from Mr. John Innys to a Friend, giving a short Account of his Collections.

(This volume is dated Chelsea 1749, and Redland Court, Gloucestershire, 1762.)

“Sir,                                                                                                                  Chelsea, June 5, 1749.

“As you are pleased to desire a short account of my GEOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS, I here send it you.—

“The first and second volumes comprehend by way of introduction the general or cosmographical part, that is, as much of astronomy as has any connection with geography, the several hypotheses about the disposition of the universe, and the best schemes and designs for rendering that part intelligible and easy.

v/

“All the other volumes are purely geographical, consisting of maps, plans, views, &c. antient and modern, of all parts of the habitable world.

“At the beginning of every volume is a table of the parts it contains, divided and subdivided into the smallest territories; and in an opposite column is an account of the maps, &c. in it, with their dates and where engraven.

“The maps according to the antients stand first, then the modern in the order of time it is supposed they were published; the like disposition is observed in the cities, towns, churches, &c.

“Where there is no map of a particular province according to the antients, a reference will be always made to the general map.

“The table gives the names of places first in English, 2dly in Latin, and lastly as they are called by the natives and other nations. Thus, The Hague, Eng. Haga Comitis, Lat. S’Graven Hague by the natives, La Haye by the French; and sometimes the Greek names from Strabo, Ptolomey, &c.

“After the names of kingdoms, provinces, cities, &c. is a short account of their situation, ex[t]ent, &c. with their longitudes and latitudes according to what authors they are taken from: if by observation it is always expressed by an asterisk.

“In the descriptions of the parts of the world the distances will be in English computed miles of 60 to a degree; so that by measuring on the scale of latitude on any map, the place can easily be found if in it; and if not in any map, by knowing how many miles it is east, west, north, or south, from any given town, its situation may easily be guessed at.

“When it happens that a plan of a town cannot be inserted in its proper place, the place where it is to be found will be referred to before its name in the tables. Thus Reading being in the corner of Speed’s map of Bucks the reference directs thither.

“Immediately before the maps general and particular, and before the plans and views of towns, cities, monasteries, &c. will be an account of such authors as have described them; and where no such account is prefixed the general one is to be consulted.

vi/

“Whatever plans or views, prints or drawings I have had intelligence of, but not yet procured, I write down on pieces of paper, which I place where the things themselves should be, and also enter, them in a book, which I have found of use for placing them when they can be come at.

“The points wherein geographers disagree will be taken notice of throughout the whole work.

“When I have a plan whose chorographical situation is uncertain, I enter it in a book till I can get more satisfactory notice about it.

“The materials of such volumes are marked with the letters A, B, C, D, &c. and when the parts exceed one alphabet, another is begun; and if that be exhausted a third, and so on; and a volume may begin in one alphabet; and conclude in another; thus vol. LXXIII. begins 39 E. and ends 40 T.

“Every volume is titled on the back three ways, and sometimes four.

“I. What volume of the work it is.

“II. What letters the contents are marked with.

“III. What empire or kingdom.

“IV. What parts of that empire or kingdom.

“Thus

VOL. LLXXIII.} England, Part 7.
39 E — 40 T  } Gloucestershire.

“At the end of the last volume I have added a synopsis of the longitudinal measures of different nations reduced to English feet, whereby they may be easily compared with English miles.

“To the whole I have drawn up an alphabetical Index in four columns of all the empires, kingdoms, provinces, islands, and smallest territories in the world: whether I have any particular maps of such small parts or not; as likewise of all the cities, towns, villages, churches, houses, or monuments of antiquity in the whole collection, whereby the minutest place may be instantly found, proceeding from the more particular to the more general. Thus Weldon pavement in col. I. Corby hundred in col. 2. Northamptsh. col. 3. England col. 4.

vii/

“You have here, Sir, a plan of what is designed: for though it has been the amusement of my leisurc hours for above 30 years, yet it is not so complete as I could wish; I mean as to materials I have already by me; for new ones offer themselves daily.

“I am with great respect,

“Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

“Jo. Innys.

Aahus county.    Munster bishopric.   Westphalia circle.     Germany, 7 A. 38.
Alburg diocese.  North Jutland.             Jutland dukedom.    Denmark, 2 M 1.
Abbotsbury abbey.     Ugscomb H.      Dorset.       England, 37 T 5.
Bender.                                           Budziac Tartary. Turky in Europe, 29 R. 6.
Corfe castle.                 Blandford division.    Dorset. England, 38 B. 12.
Corpus Christi coll.     Cambridge.        Cambridgeshire. England, 33 K 16.
———                         Oxford.             Oxfordshire.      ———    53 D 75.
Dover court church.   Tendring H.    Essex.         ———   38 Y I 7.
Evora territory.                                Alenteio province.    Portugal, 28 K 10.
——— town.                Evora territory.  ———                    ———  28 K 11.
Kalmuck Tartars.                                   Tartary.       Asia, 78 B 13.
Ovo island.                                    in the Archipelago. Turky in Europe, 30 F 8.
Wansted house.          Becontree H.  Essex.      England, 38 K 28.
Wapping, St. John’s parish in the liberties of London.     ——— 49 D 1.

References

Blair, John. 1768. “On the Rise and Progress of Geography.” In Fourteen Maps of Ancient and Modern Geography, For the Illustration of The Tables of Chronology and History, 1–20. London. Reprinted as The History of the Rise and Progress of Geography (London: T. Cadell and W. Ginger, 1784).

Reinhartz, Dennis. 1997. The Cartographer and the Literati: Herman Moll and His Intellectual Circle. Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press.

Robert de Vaugondy, Didier. 1755. Essai sur l’histoire de la géographie, ou sur son origine, ses progrès et son état actuel. Paris: Antoine Boudet. Reprinted as “Préface historique dans laquelle on traite de l’origine, des progrès, et de l’état actuel de la géographie,” in Atlas universel (Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1757).

Thrower, Norman J. W. 1978. “Edmond Halley and Thematic Geo-Cartography.” In The Compleat Plattmaker: Essays on Chart, Map, and Globe Making in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Norman J. W. Thrower, 195–228. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wallis, Helen M. 1991. “The Copperplate Maps and the Holkham Engravings.” Map Collector 56: 13–21.

———. 1993. “Discovery at Holkham Hall.” Colonial Williamsburg 15: 49–55.