Cassell & Co., Ltd 

Cassell 5a - 5c 

Towards the end of the nineteenth century a number of gazetteer-style works appeared. In 1894 F S Weller's maps appeared in The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales edited by J H F Brabner. This contained the traditional county format maps but also a few town plans (see Weller, F S for a plan of Plymouth etc.). But the days of the county atlas were coming to a close. More and more works were using the sheet-style format where county boundaries were no longer considered. Cary's maps 100 years earlier had utilised this technique (see Cary's New and Improved Maps but it was not a popular format at that time.

In 1898 Cassell's brought out a six volume gazetteer including 60 maps. The atlas had actually been issued in parts between 1893-1898. The volumes contained a place by place description and history of every city, town, village and hamlet in the whole of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the true gazetteer style. It was liberally illustrated with very detailed maps of the countries. Devon was mostly represented on Sheets XIX, XX and XXV but a small portion of the western border was included with Cornwall on Sheet XXIV. Map XIX appeared in Volume II of the part-work; maps XXV and XX appeared in Volume III. These maps were prepared by W & A K Johnston.

W & A K Johnston were among the leading publishers of cartographic material in Great Britain during the nineteenth century. They engraved and published their Modern Map of England and Wales which was not only used to prepare maps of Devon and Cornwall (together) for Murray’s Handbooks between 1858 and 1876 but also subsequently issued as Johnston’s Modern County Atlas in 1889. 

The original plates had a long life time as the actual mapping had been carried out over 50 years before. Murray´s various Handbooks for Travellers had included maps taken from the original plates as early as 1858 but it was not until 1889, i.e. just before Cassell´s bought thir sectonal maps, that the company of W & A K Johnston brought the maps out in an atlas. The Modern County Atlas of England & Wales only appeared once. It would seem that the Johnstons were more successful in supplying others with sections. Only one copy of The Handy Library of England and Wales published by C W Deacon is known although the same company included large maps in its Devon and Cornwall County Guide (1896). The history of these maps is described in Victorian Maps of Devon entry 135 (click to access).  

Maps from these plates were also used in a guide to Sidmouth published by the Day Bros., see next entry. 

Size: 190 x 275 mm.                                         English Miles (10 = 55 mm). 

ENGLAND MAP XIX or XX or XXV (EaOS). Signature: W & A K Johnston, Edinburgh and London (AeOS) and  imprint: Cassell & Company, Limited, London. (EeOS).

Map XIX has Northwest Devon, Lynmouth to Tavistock with Porthcothan (Ae); XX has Northeast Devon; and XXV shows all south coast from Plymouth to Abbotsbury (Dorset).    

 1. 1898      Cassell’s Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland London, Paris & Melbourne. Cassell & Co., Ltd. 1898.                                                 KB.

Sheets XIX and XXV

 




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