International Women's Day 2018 provides the opportunity to celebrate the life and achievements of Helen Wallis OBE (1924-1995) head of the British Museum and later British Library's map collections between 1967-1986, and to promote a research fund set up in her memory. 

Helen Wallis was one of the leading figures in map librarianship who pioneered the study of cartography. She was the first woman to hold the position of Map Librarian, following on from her predecessor R.A. Skelton (1906-1970) in 1967. Over 19 years she made the British Library the centre for map studies through research, publications and exhibitions including the Cook bicentenary exhibition of 1968, the American War of Independence exhibition of 1975 and the Francis Drake exhibition of 1977.

Wallis was a geographically-trained historian, a gifted and enthusiastic communicator, and a prominent member of professional and academic organisations. Among her wide research interests were historical globes. She was the first to unearth the significance of the earliest English-produced globes the (Molyneux Globes of 1590), and was the first to research the Jesuit-produced 'Chinese' globe of 1623 which was donated to the nation during her tenure. Once, when transporting the globe on an aeroplane to Berlin where it was to be exhibited, she famously had a seat reservation made out to it in the name of 'Mr Globe'.

Mr Globe

In honour of the memory of Helen Wallis, an annual award of £300 is available to a scholar  from any field, whose work will help promote the use of the British Library's cartographic collections in historical investigation. The award also offers the convenient working environment of the British Library with extended privileges. The fellowship may be held as a full or part-time appointment, but would normally be for one or two periods totalling a minimum of 6 months with the maximum period being one calendar year.

To apply please send a letter of application, indicating the period you intend to be in London and outlining your proposed research project, together with a full curriculum vitae and the names of three referees to [email protected] or by post to The British Library, Map Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK. The closing date for each annual award is May 1st. For further information on the award please contact [email protected]

Tom Harper 

For many of the thousands of British men and women who ventured abroad during the eighteenth century, travelling to Italy was the highlight of the trip. To some it was even considered an essential activity for any aspiring socialite or person of culture. In the words of Dr Samuel Johnson, “A man who hath not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see”.[1]

Sir Bourchier Wrey (1714/15–1784), who travelled around Europe in the mid-1730s – including a sojourn in Italy – came up with a novel way of commemorating his time there: he decided to commission a map of Rome.[2]

The map in question is John Rocque’s A plan of Rome… (see fig. 1) published in 1750 – of which there is a fine copy in King George III’s Topographical Collection.[3]

Fig. 1: John Rocque, A Plan of Rome, (London, 1750), British Library Maps K.Top.81.22.

We can tell that Wrey was involved in the production as there is a decorative cartouche dedicating the map to him in the bottom-right corner (see fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Detail of John Rocque, A Plan of Rome, (London, 1750), showing the decorative cartouche that dedicates the map to Sir Bou[r]chier Wrey.

With an eye for sales, Rocque catered his map to potential grand tourists: he has highlighted certain buildings and sites that had architectural or antiquarian interest with deep scoring, so they stand out in black (see figs. 3 and 4).

Fig. 3: Detail of John Rocque, A Plan of Rome, (London, 1750), showing the title and the area around St Peter’s Basilica.

Fig. 4: Detail of John Rocque, A Plan of Rome, (London, 1750), showing the urban centre of Rome.

This innovation would have made the map immediately more useful and alluring to travellers. These highlighted areas, which comprise the numbered locations of the index, are far more easily identifiable than if they simply were marked with numbers.

Rocque was one of London’s most successful mapmakers of the eighteenth century and this plan of Rome followed in the wake of his other city maps, such as those of Berlin (1745), London and Westminster (1746), and Paris (1748).[4]

On another level, however, this map speaks of the immense personal and societal impact of the Grand Tour.

Wrey had returned from travelling over a decade prior to the date of publication. This interval demonstrates that the effects of Wrey’s experiences abroad did not conclude when he first set foot back on English soil. Rather, his Grand Tour still had powerful enough meaning for him to want to assist Rocque in publishing this map.

But aside from seeing this map as a personal memento for Wrey, we can also recognise its wider social value. With this map Wrey was making a carefully constructed public expression of his own identity. By patronising a map of Rome, the traditional pinnacle of the Grand Tour, Wrey was showing off both his cultural and historical sensibilities and his appreciation of the science of mapping. 

Fig. 5: Sir Bourchier Wrey’s portrait for the Society of Dilettanti, by George Knapton, 1744, showing him dishing up some punch from a classicised bowl inscribed with Horace’s phrase “Dulce est Desipere in Loco” – “It is delightful to play the fool occasionally”. (Wikimedia Commons, Source/Photographer: J. Paul Getty Trust)

What’s more, Wrey was an active member of the Society of Dilettanti, whose objective was to promote knowledge of classical antiquity (and the members certainly had fun whilst doing so – see fig. 5).[5] Finally, as this map marks an important update on the cartography of Rome for a British audience, we can detect Wrey’s intention to make Rome more accessible to grand tourists.

What better way is there to remember your own travels than to put your name on the map?

Jeremy Brown

Jeremy is undertaking an AHRC collaborative PhD with the British Library and Royal Holloway University of London on Maps and the Italian Grand Tour.

https://www.bl.uk/case-studies/jeremy-brown# 

 

[1] Boswell, James, Life of Johnson (London: Oxford University Press, 1965): 742.

[2] Some biographical information on Sir Bourchier Wrey, sixth baronet, can be found at: Handley, Stuart, ‘Wrey, Sir Bourchier, fourth baronet (c.1653–1696)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30025, accessed 4 Jan 2018].

[3] Maps K.Top.81.22.

[4] For more information of Rocque’s life and work see Varley, John, ‘John Rocque. Engraver, Surveyor, Cartographer and Map-Seller’, Imago Mundi, 5 (1948), 83-91.

[5] For an overview of the activity and achievements of the Society, see Redford, Bruce, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England, (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008).

Captain Montagu Sinclair Wellby (1866-1900) was already a veteran of several exploratory expeditions when he set out from the Abyssinian (now Ethiopian) capital Addis Ababa on his marathon journey in December 1898. Along the way he produced a series of nineteen manuscript maps, devotedly compiled in coloured inks and watercolour.

Wellby’s aim was to extend British influence in the largely uncharted area of southern Abyssinia. However, this was a delicate task. It was only two years since the Abyssinians, under the charismatic Emperor Menelik II, had defeated the Italians at Adwa to become the first and only African nation to overcome an invading European power. Britain was clearly wary and ‘preferred to cultivate friendly relations with Emperor Menelik than to have him as an unfriendly adversary’ (Ram 2009, p. 243). This was to be an expedition of collaboration rather than colonisation.

Figure 1. Captain Montagu Sinclair Wellby (From Wellby 1901, photographer unknown)
Figure 2. Emperor Menelik II (Wikimedia Commons, photographer unknown)

 To smooth his passage, Wellby met with Menelik in a somewhat bizarre tented encounter at which the Emperor was played a personalised phonograph recording from Queen Victoria. Menelik immediately ordered an eleven-gun salute and gave Wellby permission to travel his kingdom at will in return for a set of the maps (Wellby, 1901). He even recorded a return message which, according to her journal, the Queen listened to at Osborne House on 18 August 1899. The recording still survives in the Royal Collection and reveals a strong, resonant voice and diction not dissimilar to a modern Amharic speaker (Demoz, 1969). Indeed Menelik was a fervent supporter of new technology. On the arrival of the first car in Addis Ababa in 1907, he talked with its owner for almost two hours before progressing to traction engines, railways and phonographs, while his wife discussed the possibility of repairing their home cinema equipment (Nicholson, 1965). Indeed it was this readiness to embrace innovation that was key to Menelik’s success in effecting a period of unprecedented progress in his nation’s development. During his reign he oversaw the founding of a new capital city (Addis Ababa succeeded Entoto in 1889), road and railway construction and the introduction of electricity, the telegraph, the telephone, a national currency and bank, a central taxation system and a postal service.

Having secured Menelik’s advocacy, Wellby assembled a caravan that comprised forty-three locally recruited labourers and an entourage of well loaded mules, ponies, donkeys, camels and sheep. Also included was the highly capable Daffadar Shahzad Mir, seconded from the Survey of India and with whom Wellby had worked on an earlier expedition from Tibet to Peking (now Beijing). Mir gathered map detail by plane table survey, a technique that utilized an alidade attached to a small, horizontally-set and tripod-mounted drawing board; latitudes and altitudes were determined by Wellby himself using a theodolite and hypsometer respectively.

Figure 3. Extract from Wellby's map of Mount Zuquala, to be filed at BL Maps WOMAT/AFR/ABY/8.

The party left for Mount Zuquala, approximately 50 miles south-west of Addis Ababa; Wellby’s map is shown in Figure 3. The extinct volcano, complete with crater lake, was considered sacred both by local Christians and the indigenous Oromo. Wellby observed that water boiled here at 91º Celsius and calculated its height as 9,569 feet; modern surveys put it 237 feet higher, although not a bad first estimate considering the rudimentary equipment.

Continuing through the Great Rift Valley the company arrived at Lake Gallop (named after the local Gallopa tribe, and shown in Figure 4). This was a name generally unfamiliar to the British establishment (Europeans usually referred to it as Lake Rudolf, after the Austrian Crown Prince, although today the preferred name is Turkana, from the indigenous Kenyan community). Wellby, though, insisted on retaining the local toponymy. Indeed he was particularly renowned for his respectful treatment of the local population. Aware that the sight of his sizeable convoy might cause alarm, he invariably halted it at least a mile from any village, preferring to continue on foot with just a couple of gift-laden men. He was always eager to trade with the villagers too, much preferring to pay for goods rather than accept them in exchange for the presents (Wellby, 1901). In fact his consideration towards the indigenous people – sadly not always the case with many Europeans – was so well regarded by his colleagues that Lieutenant Colonel John Harrington, Her Majesty’s Agent and Consul General in Abyssinia, was sufficiently moved to write that his ‘unfailing tact … won him [their] confidence and affection’ (Harrington 1900, p. xviii). Wellby also had concerns for their future: ‘I wondered what would be the fate of the contented and harmless and naked tribes I had met who are so far independent and free.’ (Wellby 1900, p. 303)

 Figure 4. Extract of the southern shore of Lake Gallop (now Turkana), to be filed at BL Maps WOMAT/AFR/ABY/8.

The expedition continued around the southern shores of Lake Gallop, and it was here, almost 1,000 miles from the nearest hospital, that Wellby was dealt a cruel blow. Having cut his finger on a food tin, he contracted blood poisoning, and for the remaining 400 miles he marched, hand held upright, in considerable pain. Never one to fuss, his account (Wellby 1900, p.295) nonchalantly records, ‘my only misfortune was losing a finger’. And to compound his woes, half the animal transport succumbed to anthrax, and a surviving sheep was eaten by a crocodile. Yet the party continued northwards, eventually reaching the Anglo-Egyptian fort at Nasser on the Sobat River in present-day South Sudan (Figure 5).

 Figure 5. Extract of Nasser and the Sobat River, to be filed at BL Maps WOMAT/AFR/ABY/8.

Wellby’s maps are just a small sample of what is available in the War Office Archive. Conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the maps and associated documents have been generously funded by the Indigo Trust, and Phase 1 of the project, comprising British East Africa, was completed a year ago. Phase 2, covering Abyssinia, British Central Africa, German East Africa and Mozambique, is currently in progress, with the mapping due to be available freely online from early 2018. A talk on the War Office Archive mapping, Have Theodolite, Will Travel: Mapping Africa’s Magnificent Landscape, is scheduled for 27 November 2017 as part of the British Library’s Feed the Mind series, and places can be booked at the link above.

So what of our protagonists? Emperor Menelik II is now generally considered one of Ethiopia’s greatest leaders and often regarded as the ‘founder of the modern Ethiopian state’ (e.g. Pankhurst 1998, p. 201); he died in 1913. Shahzad Mir continued his distinguished career in the Survey of India and was awarded the Order of British India; he died in 1924. Wellby’s story though does not have a happy ending. He returned to England in 1899, shortly to rejoin his regiment in South Africa at the start of the Second Boer War. He survived the Siege of Ladysmith but was shot at Merzicht, dying from his wounds at Paardekap on 5 August 1900.

Whether Menelik ever received his maps is not clear, but undoubtedly Wellby had impressed him. The Emperor recorded (Emperor Menelik II, 1899) that he was was ‘glad’ and ‘pleased’ to accept Wellby’s dedication of his posthumously published expedition account (Wellby, 1901). However, it is more difficult to gauge whether Wellby’s untimely death adversely affected Anglo-Abyssinian collaboration. A status quo remained until 1906 when the death of Menelik’s cousin left the Emperor, now aged 62 and in declining health, with no obvious successor. Sensing an impending power vacuum, Britain, France and Italy signed a Tripartite Convention that, following any ‘change in the situation’ (Foreign Office 1906, Article 1) (while not specifically stated, Menelik’s death is clearly implied), would divide Abyssinia into three spheres of influence, yet still respect her independence. In other words, the Europeans would protect their interests but not intervene militarily. The document, compiled without Menelik’s knowledge, was later presented to him. Ever the diplomat, he thanked the three nations for their time and consideration politely adding, almost as a by-the-way, that the document was in no way binding to him or his country. (Pankhurst, 1998).

Nick Krebs

Cataloguer, War Office Archive

 

Further reading

Abraham Demoz, ‘Emperor Menelik’s Phonograph Message to Queen Victoria’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 32(1969), 251-56.

Emperor Menelik II, Letter to Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Harrington (Addis Ababa: 1899)

Foreign Office, Tripartite Agreement, December 13, 1906 (London: H.M.S.O., 1906)

J.L. Harrington, ‘Introduction’, in ‘Twixt Sirdar and Menelik: An Account of a Year’s Expedition from Zeila to Cairo through unknown Abyssinia, by M.S. Wellby (London: Harper & Brothers, 1901), pp. xv-xix.

T.R. Nicholson, A Toy for the Lion (London, 1965)

Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998)

K.V. Ram, Anglo-Ethiopian Relations 1896 to 1906 (New Delhi: Concept, 2009)

M.S. Wellby, ‘King Menelek’s Dominions and the Country between Lake Gallop (Rudolph) and the Nile Valley’, The Geographical Journal, 16(1900), 292-304.

M.S. Wellby, ‘Twixt Sirdar and Menelik: An Account of a Year’s Expedition from Zeila to Cairo through unknown Abyssinia (London: Harper & Brothers, 1901)

A remarkable new acquisition has arrived! Planning your neighbourhood  is a proposal on twenty display boards for post-war reconstruction produced by an architect Ernő Goldfinger and Ursula Blackwell in 1944 for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs.

Planning Your Neighbourhood. Title page. British Library Maps C.49.e.82.

Goldfinger, educated in Vienna and Paris, played an important part in the development of the modernist movement in Britain. His appreciation for the Brutalist style and unconventional designs (including the Alexander Fleming House at Elephant and Castle, Balfron Tower at Poplar, and Trellick Tower in west London) often upset the general public. Allegedly, the author Ian Fleming, who was Goldfinger’s neighbour in Hampstead, was so opposed to the design of terraced houses in Willow Road, that he named one of the James Bond novel villains after the architect.

Planning your neighbourhood captures an air of optimism in which the designer presented the utopian vision of improved post-war city life. The district of Shoreditch in East London, heavily damaged through enemy actions and “overcrowded and disfigured by slums”, was a perfect candidate for post-war reconstruction. The proposal incorporates maps, aerial photos and diagrams to visualise the concept of comfortable modern housing that caters for all. The idea was that anyone, young and old across different social classes, would enjoy living in the “vertical city”.

Aerial view of the damaged site in Shoreditch. Board 11. Planning Your Neighbourhood. British Library Maps C.49.e.82.

The set opens with a comparison of country and city life stating that in towns “the advantage of neighbourliness is lost”. The solution suggested by Goldfinger is the creation of neighbourhoods composed of residential units, in line with principles of planning concept introduced by Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie and John Forshaw in their Greater London Plan, which promoted development of self-contained communities.

Goldfinger’s scheme advocates vertically built cites over traditional outward expansion. He compared a footprint of a tower block against a street of terraced houses, demonstrating the advantage of the modern approach.

 

Board 10. Planning Your Neighbourhood. British Library Maps C.49.e.82.

The importance of planning is strongly emphasized, with the planner having to carefully consider a design which allowed for different sized apartments, depending on individual family needs, and appropriate amenities located nearby. Goldfinger also thought about green spaces and recreational facilities such as local cinemas and swimming pools, playgrounds, cricket and football grounds – all conveniently situated in the centre of the neighbourhood within an easy reach from home. Also, with safety in mind, he introduced the idea of segregated traffic with high speed roads exclusively reserved for heavy vehicles (including buses and trucks), and slow roads for horse carts, bicycles and pedestrians providing safe access to nurseries and schools with no crossing of traffic required.  

 

Board 8. Planning Your Neighbourhood. British Library Maps C.49.e.82.

The reconstruction of post-war Britain was less ambitious than Goldfinger estimated and his Shoreditch scheme was never built. One could argue it was realised on a ‘mini scale’ as Trellick Tower Cheltenham Estate in west London completed in 1972 with its own doctor surgery, nursery, school, laundrettes, and shops. Loved or hated, it became one of London’s landmarks and has been given Grade II listed status by English Heritage.

By the mid-1970s concrete tower blocks were no longer perceived as a model for urban regeneration. What originally was intended to provide a solution to the housing problem and growth of a healthy strong community in reality became the main factor for social alienation, crime and creating serious safety hazards.

Unfortunately Planning your neighbourhood was acquired too late to be included in our Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line exhibition held in November 2016 to March 2017 but the set is available for ordering through the online catalogue.

Yesterday I gave a keynote presentation at the RGS-IBG Schools event 'Looking ahead at GCSE geography and history: getting the best results' with the Historical Association.

If you did a Venn diagram of history and geography you’d get a historic map, and the purpose of my presentation was to convince geography and history teachers of the value of historic maps for their resource cupboards.

My general argument was that maps have always had an important role in education, pre-dating the modern subject of geography by a good few centuries. During the 19^th century, when geography acquired its modern identity, maps were there as geography's  handmaiden, supporting it and pushing its agenda.

Today, maps are perhaps less central to geography education than they were a century ago. Other sources are as heavily used, and maps may not be perceived as the pure scientific communication models that 1960s geographers were trying to develop, or as versatile as GiS.

But maps can still be useful in enabling an appreciation of current trends in geography -  an awareness which is surely essential if you’re a geography teacher and student. In the later 19^th century it was physical and commercial geography to equip British Geographer-in-chief Halford Mackinder’s ‘future inheritors of Empire.’ As to the increase in prominence of fieldwork in the new GCSE Geography syllabus, is there an echo of the 'Nature Study' trend emphasised over a century ago?

[A hand-drawn map of Ireland, around 1540] British Library Cotton MS Augustus I.ii.21.

For history students, the Historical value of maps has always been obvious. This English-produced map of Ireland from around 1540 (south at the top, Dublin and the Shannon appearing mid-way up on the left) may be inaccurate because it exaggerates the size of area of the English Pale, and has some settlements larger than others. But doesn’t that enable us to see into the mind of the English crown, and get an insight into their strategies, their fears, their blind spots? As a historical source: solid gold.

There are thousands of freely available digital historical maps online as context for geogrpahical trends, and as historical sources. If you're a teacher, stick a few in your cupboard. Have a few more on us. 

Gavin Moorhead from the British Library's conservation team has been busy, and in this guest blog he explains just how.

'At the start of 2017 an item from the Map Collection underwent conservation so that readers could see an iconic piece of London engineering history.

Desseins du Pont Projete sur la Tamise a Londre – or Designs of the Projected Bridge on the River Thames in London (British Library Maps C.49.e.76) is a proposal for the construction of Westminster Bridge (opened 1750). 

It consists of 1 drawing on multiple paper panels each measuring 490mm in height but joined together the collective width runs to 14740mm – or almost 15 metres. This ‘single sheet’ has been folded into a ‘concertina’ book block, which is attached to boards bound in tan calf at each end. Written and drawn in ink and watercolour, it is part ‘artists impression’ and part mechanical drawing - which collectively make a fascinating record of plans and construction ideas that the architect, possibly the Swiss engineer Charles Labelye (1705-1781?) had for the bridge and embody the origins of a quintessential London landmark and symbol.  

However, 280 years on from its creation, mechanical wear and water damage have acted to severely degrade the leather covers and paper substrate. In this condition, there was no practical method of use. Refurbishment began in January 2017.

Conservation at the British Library is carried out under a code of ethics that includes; making repairs that are reversible; conducting them with minimum intervention; and using only archive quality materials. Added to this is the fact that the British Library is a ‘working’ library so options for repair need to be considered for their suitability, functionality and longevity.

Fig 1: Back board before conservation showing water damage, staining, losses and abrasions.

 Any item undergoing conservation has a condition assessment prior to treatment. Images from this documentation record can be seen below. Fig. 1 illustrates the types of damage to the cover boards and book block. The boards have suffered extensive losses, abrasion, warping and staining with the back board in particular showing damage caused by contact with moisture in the dark areas of the leather. The book block has been heavily stained from acid migration from the leather; (Fig. 2), while most of the folded panels were split apart or in the process of splitting from mishandling (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2:  Front pastedown and first panel before conservation, showing separation staining from acid migration.

Fig. 3:  Separated sheets and dirt deposits before conservation.

The treatment was carried out in two stages - board restoration followed by repair of the book block. The board leather was first consolidated with methylcellulose to enable safer lifting of the outer edges in order to trim back the blackened and brittle water damaged areas. Following this, the edge and corner losses in the boards were re-instated by adding paper pulp mixed with a small amount of wheat starch paste. These were pressed until dry then strengthened with pasted laminates of Japanese tissue paper. Lastly, the new corners were trimmed back to the original shape. The missing areas of leather were replaced with thin strips of calfskin cut to shape and pared down to size. These were inserted and glued underneath the existing leather to form new edges. The speckled marks on the skin were approximated using gouache pigment (Fig.4).

Fig. 4:  Front board after conservation.

The book block was first dry cleaned using a smoke sponge eraser then repaired in sections. Extant fragments were located, aligned and reattached using toned Japanese tissue adhered with wheat starch paste. In-fills were made where losses were permanent using western papers, via the same process. Split sections were re-joined with Japanese tissue and paste but the folds were re-enforced with strips of un-dyed natural linen pasted to the verso. The first and last folios were then re-attached to the boards using a pasted linen laminate again to strengthen the joints and facilitate re-folding (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5:  Last panel, back pastedown and scale after conservation, showing tissue repairs.

 Gavin Moorhead

As UK City of Culture 2017 the city of Hull is currently host to an array of festivals, events and exhibitions, and the British Library is delighted to have been able to lend some of its map treasures to one of them.

The Ferrens Art Gallery's Rembrandt exhibition (1 April - 28 August) will include not only one of the most significant early printed maps of Hull, but the copper plate used to print it.    

Wenceslaus Hollar, Kyngeston-upon-Hull. London, around 1642. British Library Maps K.Top 44.32.

Wenceslaus Hollar, [Copper plate used to print a map of Hull, around 1642]. British Library Maps 177.L.2.

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) was a Czech artist brought to England  by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel in 1636 and excelling with sublimely etched prints of a variety of subjects, including maps and urban bird's-eye views. His map of Hull is thought to have been produced in 1642, around the time of the siege of Hull by Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War (1642-51).

The example of this map on display is the copy from the Topographical Collection of George III. It is accompanied by the very copper plate etched by Hollar then inked and passed through a press to create it. Copper plates hardly ever survive (often being melted down and reused), and so we are particularly pleased that such a fine example is now able to be seen in the very place it depicts, its copper glinting for a 21st century audience among other examples of 17th century art and culture.

The first atlas of England and Wales was published in 1579. It is a landmark in the cartography of Britain, containing maps of the counties of England and Wales by the mapmaker Christopher Saxton, engraved mostly by Dutch artists but also the odd Englishman such as Augustine Ryther.

The maps are believed to have been commissioned by Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state William Cecil Lord Burghley during the 1570s. Its purpose was security, defense and administration during a period of internal intrigue and international instability, notably tension with Catholic Spain. 

Burghley's own copy of the atlas, held in the British Library (Royal MS.18 D.III.)  contains his notes identifying Catholic families and potential justices of the peace. Shannon and Winstanley suggested the author of one of the atlas's maps of Lancashire to be none other than Francis Walsingham's cryptographer Thomas Phelippes.

Thomas Phelippes(?), [Map of Lancashire], c. 1576. British Library Royal MS.18.D.III 

England had enemies indeed during the 1570s, and war would break out with Spain in 1585. So why, by contrast to the atlas's larger scale county maps of snug and safe Monmouthshire and Leicestershire did Saxton provide only a puny small scale map for vulnerable south east England?

Christopher Saxton, Cantii, Southsexiae, Surriae et Middlesexiae comitat. London, 1576. British Library Maps C.3.bb.5.

In 1801 again under threat of war, this time with France, the Ordnance Survey made sure Kent was mapped before anywhere else.

William Mudge / Ordnance Survey, The county of Kent, with part of the county of Essex. London: William Faden, 1801 (1809). David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

Peter Barber pointed out that the elaborate decoration of Saxton's south east map could not distract from the fact that it wasn't really fit for purpose. Barber also suggested the most likely reason for the rather pathetic map: Saxton was skint, short on funds and economising on engraving and production costs.

War isn't really the best time to be scrimping and saving, and it is around the time of the south east map (dated 1576) that a new paymaster, Thomas Seckford, was drafted in by Burghley to see the production through.

The eventual Spanish invasion was defeated in 1588. Then there was plenty of money to commission extravagant celebratory copper engraved maps of the English victory over the Armada.

Robert Adams, [The British Isles with the route of the Spanish Armada] from  Expeditionis Hispanorum in Angliam vera descriptio. Anno Do. MDLXXXVIII. R. Adamo authore. A. Ryther sculpsit. London, c. 1590. British Library Maps C.3.bb.5

A set of these Armada engravings is bound up with another of the British Library's copies of Saxton's atlas (Maps C.3.bb.5), believed to belong to James I. The rest is history.