| The
first serious printed maps of town plans appeared in the corner of John Speed's county maps of 1610 onward. The surveys were conducted sometime in the 1590s and the maps reflect the layouts in the late 17th century. The style is not that of a conventional plan, but a distorted isometric birdseye view. Town plans appeared throughout the next few centuries in all sorts of publications, for a variety of reasons, usually the proposed development of a new estate, or to publicise the development of some new feature. They were also produced when describing fashionable new resorts such as Bath, Buxton and Tunbridge Wells. In 1821 Cole and Roper produced 21 town plans in their 'British Atlas', and more in 1810 in 'The Beauties of England and Wales'. The first rational collection of town plans appeared in 1832 as a direct result of the Reform Bill of 1831. As the population numbers rose, the old electoral boundaries did not reflect their true representation in Parliament. The Reform Bill suggested changes to some town and borough boundaries, and to this end surveys and reports were compiled. The first of these reports was compiled by Robert Kearsley Dawson, contained 277 maps (of towns and counties) and was published in 1832. The maps were based on Ordnance Survey data, were produced by lithographic transfer and were hand coloured to indicate various boundary divisions, river and coastal limits. Some areas are covered by two maps, one to indicate the larger borough district, the other a more detailed plan of the town. In some cases, a before and after representation is shown, indicating different divisions of the same area. A separate survey was conducted for Scotland, the report comipled by Sir John Dalrymple (not Dawson), and was published in 1832. Further Dawson reports and maps for England and Wales were issued in 1837. In the 1830s Thomas Moule included some town plans with his county maps. In 1840 Samuel Lewis published 'A View of the Historical Representation of England' containing county and town plan maps highlighting the boundaries of old and new boroughs, along with parish and township boundaries. They were drawn by R. Creighton and engraved by J. Walker, and many have several towns per page. They were generally hand coloured at the time to indicated old and new boundary limits. In 1867 a further Boundary Commission report was undertaken with maps produced by Henry James, Colonel of Royal Engineers. These maps are also outline coloured to reflect boundary limits for the 1832 and 1868 boundary revisions. The maps produced for the Boundary Commission Reports only deal with the areas targeted for boundary reform. Many towns do not feature in these sets of maps. It has been known for collectors to spend years trying to obtain a 'Dawson' or 'James' map of their town that does not exist. Other publishers such as Tallis and the SDUK included various (almost random) town plans in their general works. In the 1880s and later publishers like Bacon and Bartholomew produced general purpose town plans. |
||