1929 Admiralty Nautical Chart or Map of Hong Kong

Scarce nautical chart centered on Hong Kong.

A rare 1929 British Admiralty nautical chart or maritime map of Hong Kong and vicinity. Centered on Hong Kong, the map includes Kowloon and the New Territories, it extends west as far as Macao, and east to Hong Hai Bay. The chart exhibits manuscript updates in a practiced hand.

Census and Publication History

This chart was first published in 1899, with the present example being updated to 1929. In the 1960s, the U.S. Navy issued a similar chart of the same title. The map appears in the OCLC in an 1899 and a 1960 edition, but no institutional holdings are identified. We have been able to trace no other examples of the present edition and no verifiable examples of earlier editions.

Cartographer

The British Admiralty Office (1795 - Present), or the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, is the Branch of the English government responsible for commanding the British Navy. In 1795, King George III created the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, known as the U.K.H.O., to provide high-quality nautical charts for the Royal Navy. Before the Admiralty's founding, surveying and creating nautical charts was primarily a commercial venture, and the cartographer himself often financed the printing of his own material. Even the great navigator Cook is known to have scrambled for funds to publish his own seminal charts - the most important and advanced of the period. The system of privately funded nautical mapping and publishing left vast portions of the world uncharted and many excellent charts unpublished. King George III, responding to significant losses in trade revenue from shipwrecks and delays caused by poor charts, recognized the need for an institutionalized, government-sponsored cartographic agency: the Admiralty. The first head of the Admiralty, a position known as Hydrographer, was the important cartographer Alexander Dalrymple. Dalrymple began by organizing and cataloging available charts before starting the laborious process of updating them and filling in the blanks. The first official Admiralty Chart appeared in 1800 and detailed Quiberon Bay in Brittany. By 1808, Captain Thomas Hurd became Hydrographer. Hurd advocated selling Admiralty charts to the general public and, by the time he retired in 1829, had issued and published about 736 charts. Stewardship then passed to Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. Under Beaufort's administration, the Admiralty truly developed as a "chart-making" rather than a "chart-cataloging" institution. Beaufort held his post from 1829 to 1854. In his 25 years at the Admiralty, Beaufort created nearly 1,500 new charts and sponsored countless surveying and scientific expeditions, including the 1831 to 1836 voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. By 1855, the Admiralty's chart catalog listed some 1,981 charts.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Manuscript corrections. Original centerfold.

References

OCLC 557702953.