1749 Kitchin map of Hertfordshire

Detailed Map of a County Famed for its Barley and Beer

A beautifully engraved 1749 Kitchin map of Hertfordshire, with a humorous decorative cartouche celebrating the region’s famed production of barley, malt, and beer. The map, based on the 1724 Payler Smith map of Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Essex, offers granular detail. Vicarages and Rectories, charity schools and religious houses are shown; post stages, parks, mills, and roads of varying quality are all identified. Beyond showing physical features, the map also notes the market days for each town, and notes the distances between market towns. Towns are also annotated to indicate their attachment to various noble titles, and to indicate particularly important trade goods. For example, the note for Hitchen explains:

it was formerly a place of great note for the Woolen Manufacture, but now that Trade is quite lost. However their Market for Grain, especially Malt is still much frequented.

The cartouche alludes to the Gin Craze - an epidemic of unchecked gin consumption afflicting Great Britain in the first half of the 18th century. It depicts a man and woman bellying up to a bar with a devil-headed spigot pouring gin into the man's outstretched hat. This is intended to be in sharp contrast to the adjoining picnic-scene of men and women, reclining on the ground next to a barley field, with a loaf of bread and a rack of ribs, guzzling beer directly from a keg. The gin-drinkers are dressed in slatternly tatters, while the beer-drinkers are neatly clothed and rosy-cheeked. Beer, after all, was considered to be the healthy alternative to the cheap gin flooding the London market, which was not infrequently flavored with turpentine.

Publication History and Census

Though engraved in 1749, Kitchen’s map did not receive publication until the completion of The Large English Atlas, published jointly with Emanuel Bowen in 1760. This work was the first large scale atlas of English counties since the atlases of Blaeu and Jansson a century earlier. The Atlas was reissued by various publishers, the maps unchanged, until c.1794.

Cartographers

Thomas Kitchin (August 4, 1718 – June 23, 1784) was a London based engraver, cartographer, and publisher. He was born in London to a hat-dyer of the same name. At 14, Kitchin apprenticed under Emanuel Bowen, under whom he mastered the art of engraving. He married Bowen daughter, Sarah Bowen, and later inherited much of his preceptor's prosperous business. Their son, Thomas Bowen Kitchin, also an engraver joined the family business, which thereafter published in Thomas Kitchin and Son. From 1858 or so Kitchin was the engraver to the Duke of York, and from about 1773 acquired the title, 'Royal Hydrographer to King George III.' He is responsible for numerous maps published in the The Star, Gentleman's Magazine, and London Magazine, as well as partnering with, at various times, with Thomas Jefferys, Emmanuel Bowen, Thomas Hinton, Issac Tayor, Andrew Dury, John Rocque, Louis de la Rochette, and Alexander Hogg, among others. Kitchin passed his business on to his son, Thomas Bowen Kitchin, who continued to republish many of his maps well after his death. Kitchin's apprentices included George Rollos, Bryant Lodge, Thomas Bowen Kitchin, Samuel Turner Sparrow, John Page, and Francis Vivares.   Further Details...

Emanuel Bowen (1694 - May 8, 1767) was a Welsh cartographer, map engraver, and publisher active in London during the first half and middle of the 18th century. Born at Talley, Carmarthenshire, he was apprenticed in 1709 to the London engraver and globe-maker Charles Price, beginning a career that combined the compilation of geographical information with copperplate engraving for booksellers and map publishers. His early work included maps for an Atlas of the World issued in 1717, followed by Britannia Depicta; or, Ogilby Improv'd (1720), prepared with John Owen, which brought together reduced road-strip maps, county maps, and historical and heraldic information in a portable volume. In 1729, Bowen published a subscription-funded map of South Wales, substantially improving the region's cartographic representation; the map's geographical information subsequently informed his Welsh county maps. After working at several London addresses, he established workshops in Aldersgate, Smithfield, and Clerkenwell, producing maps extensively for other publishers rather than relying on a prominent retail shop. His international cartography included maps for A Complete System of Geography (1744 - 1747), the 1744-48 edition of Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca, and A Complete Atlas (1752). He became geographer to George II around 1747. Among his apprentices were Thomas Kitchin (1719 - 1784), who married Bowen's daughter Sarah in 1739, and Thomas Jefferys (1719 - 1771), apprenticed in 1735. With Kitchin, Bowen produced the county maps issued between 1749 and 1760 that formed The Large English Atlas; their collaboration continued in The Royal English Atlas around 1763. His maps characteristically combined detailed geographical engraving and ornamental cartouches with extensive historical, economic, and topographical annotations. Despite his substantial output and royal appointment, Bowen died in reduced circumstances in 1767. His son and fellow engraver, Thomas Bowen (d. 1790), continued his cartographic work, including Atlas Anglicanus (1767 - 1768), which was completed and issued after Emanuel's death.   Further Details...

Anthony Walker (March 19, 1726 - May 9, 1765) was a London draughtsman, etcher and engraver. He designed and executed decorative cartouches and title pages for the map trade. His work appeared in the Kitchin and Jefferys Small English Atlas, the Kitchin and Bowles Large English Atlas, and many separately issued maps, views, illustrations and trade-cards.   Further Details...

Source

Bowen, E. The Large English Atlas. (London: Bowles) 1763 and later editions.    

Condition

Good. Evenly toned. Trimmed and mounted on old linen. Manuscript reinstatement of border at lower right corner.

References

OCLC 43184049. Hodson Printed Maps of Hertfordshire  ref. 36(v)