1744 Edge / Churchill Map of Spitzbergen with Whaling Vignettes

This is a scarce 1744 Church / Edge map of map of the Arctic Spitzbergen / Svalbard archipelago. The region here represented was the Europe's best whaling and walrusing ground in the 18th century.

A Closer Look

The mapping of the western portions of the archipelago - formerly known as Spitzbergen - is very accurate, despite being erroneously labeled 'Greneland.' In its earliest version, printed by Samuel Purchas, it was attributed to Thomas Edge, an English whaler and seal-hunter who made a number of voyages to the region, and after whom several features on the map are named. For more than a century, this was the most detailed map of the Arctic archipelago.

The Map

The map is untitled, and the most prominent place name is 'Greneland,' which was the English term for the islands the Dutch called Spitzbergen, here referring to Svalbard. To the west is Prince Charles' Island, now known as Foreland. The coastline of the aptly-named Nordaustlandet is confused: Edge, if indeed he composed the map, could not say whether it was another island or part of Svalbard, and he passes this bafflement on to the reader. Only the west coasts of Barents' Island and Edge Island are shown, and the passage dividing them - Freemansundet - is here referred to as Ald Fremans Inlett, suggesting that Edge suspected the two islands to be connected. At the eastern extreme lies Wiches lande, which is either a representation of an insufficiently-distant Nova Zembla, or entirely imaginary, there being no corresponding actual land mass. In his account in Purchas, Edge that an English ship 'discoverd to the eastwards of Greenland (Svalbard) as farre to the North-Wards as seventie nine degreez, and an iland which he named Witches Iland, and divers other ilands as by the map appeareth.' By the description, this might refer to the Kong Karls Land Islands, which the large coastline of the map's 'Wiches Lande' does not at all resemble.

The Vignettes

The eleven scenes bordering the map, also informed by Edges' voyages to the islands, depict the whaling, walrus, and bear-hunting which drew 17th century European sailors. Whaling, in particular, is shown in detail, including the means by which the whales were processed for oil and blubber.

Thomas Edge and the Muscovy Company

The Muscovy Company was a joint-stock company initially chartered in 1555 to exploit a monopoly of trade between England and Russia. In 1577, Queen Elizabeth I extended the Company's charter to include a monopoly on whaling. The most profitable whaling grounds in the beginning of the seventeenth century were centered around Spitsbergen. In 1611, the company gave Captain Thomas Edge command of two ships for a whaling voyage. He wrote of the journey in his A Brief Discovery of the Northern Discoveries, published posthumously Purchas His Pilgrimes where it was accompanied by the first version of the present map. The details on the map, as well as the vignettes, were not intended as generalized descriptions of whaling, walrusing, and so on, but were depictions of specific events in Edge's journeys to which he referred in his text. Later publications by the Churchill brothers accompany accounts other than Edge's, a testament to its longevity.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed on at least two plates; the first appeared in Samuel Purchas' 1625 Purchas His Pilrimes; the second appeared in the fourth volume of Awnsham and John Chuchill's 1704 Collection of Voyages and Travels. A further edition of that work, printed in 1744, included this map as well, either printed from a much-reworked second or third plate. This example corresponds to the 1744 issue of the map. Churchill's Voyages and Travels, are well represented in institutional collections. Separate examples - possibly of the 1704 issue - are listed in the Danish National Library and the Royal Danish Library.