One of the first users of the new telegraph office in Lhasa was Brigadier-General George Pereira, who despatched this short message on 17^th October 1922, in the course of an heroic journey undertaken in poor health at the age of 57.

As British Military Attaché in China from 1905 to 1910, George Pereira travelled widely throughout the country collecting geographical intelligence (much of which survives as maps in the War Office Archive at the British Library). Following his subsequent posting to Europe, he resigned his commission and returned to China as a civilian, journeying from Peking (Beijing) to north-west China, also to the region bordering on Burma, returning across southern China to Foochow (Fuzhou).

The First World War saw him back into the army as Lieutenant-Colonel. He saw active service on the Western Front, and retired with the rank of Brigadier-General at the end of the war.

In 1920 Pereira returned to China to pursue his lifelong ambition to journey to Lhasa. At the age of 55, and in failing health, he undertook his final, remarkable journey from Peking to India via Tibet, then back into China from Burma. Although he reached Lhasa he did not complete the return journey: having become seriously ill he died in October 1923 in western Szechwan (Sichuan) where he was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Tatsienlu (Kangding).

He was not the first Englishman in Lhasa, as his telegram might imply, but he was the first to arrive after travelling through China, rather than the shorter route from India. The only other Europeans who had achieved this feat were Vincentian Fathers Huc and Gabet in 1846.

B. Gen. G. Pereira’s route from Chamdo [昌都] to Lhasa [拉薩]. Sept. – Oct. 1922. Maps WOMAT/RAS/CHI/460/1/12/1

The map shown here is one of a contemporary set of 24 finely executed sheets covering this last journey, traced by M.I.4 (Geographical Section, General Staff) from sketches received from Brigadier-General Pereira. The maps show the wealth of local information systematically recorded by Pereira along the route.

From the War Office Archive, received from the War Office/Ministry of Defence in 1964 and 1989. The archive, covering the period 1890-1940, comprises manuscript material used for the compilation of strategic and tactical cartographic intelligence product. There are 1,428 archival files made up of 7,253 map sheets and 5,015 pages of text.

Anselm Crispin Jewitt

We are pleased to welcome this guest post from the artist Justine Smith, whose work is included in our current exhibition Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line.

'In my artistic practice I have always used collage and have been working with money since 1998. The power invested in these pieces of paper is immense, and for me, it is like working with an elemental force which impacts upon us in a political, social and moral level. A banknote can be seen as a little piece of propaganda, a cipher portraying specific aspects of a given state. In my work I appropriate these images and re-contextualize them to my own ends.

My first Map was Money map of the World 2005 (above), where every country who has a banknote is featured on the map, down to the smallest island State or Protectorate. All my maps are made initially as collages - hand drawn and traced and cut from real banknotes, often taking months to complete.

“Old Europe” was made in 2007 and is my first and, so far, only map to be made with currencies that at the time of making were no longer in circulation.  It was made as an historical map from the currencies that were in circulation prior to the introduction of the Euro and show the original countries that joined. The Francs, Guilders, Marks, Lira, etc., as with all banknotes, feature imagery that  strongly resonates with respective national identities. This map has a sister map made concurrently called “Euro Europe". It covers the exact same region, but shows the newly formed Eurozone, where all the national borders are gone and the various countries now form a single bloc.

It is almost 10 years now since these maps were made and it is surprising to see how quickly things have changed.' 

Justine Smith

The Ancient Mappe of Fairyland was published in London in 1918. It shows a vivid fantasy island inhabited by a riotous range of make-believe characters from Peter Pan and Puss-in-Boots to Hansel, Gretel and Three Blind Mice. You can see the original map in our current map exhibition, as well as viewing a larger online version here.

But why does Santa Claus not appear on the map? The answer, of course, is that unlike these fantastical characters, Santa is emphatically REAL. 

However, since every fantasy contains a hint of reality, and to honour Fairyland's mapmaker - the appropriately named Bernard Sleigh - here is Santa, instated on the map in the icy north where he belongs.

With festive greetings from everyone here at the British Library's Map Library.

 

 

 

As was announced here yesterday, the British Library has acquired important additions to its collection in the form of 9 sheets of copper, discovered in the possession of a scrap metal dealer. Scrap value £3.60 per kilo, but historical significance and research value far more considerable.

Detail of an engraved copper plate for a map by James Rennell, published in 1780.

The 9 engraved copper plates were used to print maps of India for the use of the East India Company (EIC) during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. The archive of the EIC, the India Office records and map collection was passed to the British Library in 1984 where it resides today. How the copper plates came to be reunited with this archive is a fascinating story which reveals a lot about the custodial history of the archives of British government as well as changing perceptions of maps.

Our recent purchase of nine copper plates was as follows: four plates used to print trigonometrical diagrams of William Lambton’s first survey of Malabar and Coromandel, begun in 1802; one triangulation diagram of 1827 by Lambton and his successor George Everest (he of highest mountain fame); three (of four) plates for James Rennell’s (1742-1830) ‘Map of Hindoostan’ (1788); and finally a single plate for a map included in James Rennell’s ‘Bengal Atlas’ of 1780.

These plates enable us to complete sets of copper plates already held in the India Office map collection, alongside another copper plate which had been purchased in 1988.

How did they come to be dispersed in the first place? Well this is one of the most interesting parts of the story. Dr Andrew Cook, former India Office archivist, was able to sketch out the story for me, referencing Antonia Moon’s article of the East India Company records published in the British Records Association Journal ‘Archives (October 2008).

View of the East India House, Leadenhall Street, London, 1796.

The plates seem to have been with the EIC in the 1830s in East India House, Leadenhall Street, London. In 1860 the EIC archives were due to move from there to the New India Office building in Whitehall, but because this building was unfinished when the old premises were sold, the archives went to temporary storage in the Westminster Palace Hotel nearby.  It is at this point that a number of the copper plates were apparently re-routed via the scrap metal trade, where they would remain for over a century.

In 1988 Dr Cook was tipped-off about a copper plate in the possession of a Norfolk farmer, who was looking to turn it into a mudguard for the trailer of his tractor. Upon visiting Norfolk, and examining the plate on the pool table of a local working man’s club, Dr Cook identified it as a plate from Rennell’s  ‘Bengal Atlas’ and acquired it for the collection. The nine plates more recently purchased are further miracles of survival. 

James Rennell, An engraved copper plate for 'A map of North Bahar...', London, c. 1779.

James Rennell, 'A map of North Bahar...' from The Bengal Atlas, London, 1780. Maps 145.d.26.

The uniting of various sets of engraving plates enables us to study in greater depth the printing and publishing history of some of the most powerful and significant imperial cartographic projects of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. It also shines light on the complex history of custodianship and cartography during the 19^th century.

 

One of the key exhibits in Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line - in fact one of the key maps of the 20th century - is a world map of 1942 by MacDonald Gill. Called 'The "Time and Tide" map of the Atlantic Charter', the map was published (in Time and Tide magazine) to commemorate the signing of a wartime agreement between Britain and the United States of America in August 1941.

MacDonald Gill,  The "Time and Tide" Map of the Atlantic Charter.London, 1942. British Library Maps 950.(211.).

The treaty, which was agreed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt on a warship moored off Newfoundland, set out their aspirations for a post-war peace, including self-determination and global economic freedom. This symbol of friendly co-operation between Britain and the USA was designed as a threat to the Axis powers, for the USA was not at that time at war with them. The 'special relationship' dates from here.

The map brilliantly illustrates a world, unified under the sun and with images of trade and prosperity. It is a post-war Utopian vision that has been made possible by the treaty.

MacDonald Gill, ' The Atlantic Charter', 1942. Private collection.

MacDonald Gill was a highly successful British illustrator who produced work for customers as varied as London Transport, the Tea Market Expansion Board, Cable & Wireless Ltd., and St. Andrew's church, Sunderland.

He was a particularly skillful draftsman, as visitors to Drawing the Line can see from today when the original pen sketch for the Atlantic Charter replaces the printed version on display. As Gill experts Caroline Walker and Andrew Johnston have noted, Gill seems to have applied ink directly to the paper without any need for preparatory sketches or guide lines, and there isn't a smear of Tippex in sight.

Even more amazingly, the drawing has original signatures of Churchill and Roosevelt pasted onto it.

Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line is open until 1 March.

Our relationships with maps changed very dramatically in many different ways in the 20^th century. One of the important changes is not only that maps became more widespread and familiar, but how that affected our relationships with them. The examples in the exhibition richly illustrate many of these changes, but one trend I would like to focus on here is the recognition that the power of maps became increasingly hidden as they became more accurate and realistic.

Perhaps the most iconic example in the exhibition is the Van Sant first map of the earth from space that appeared in Scientific American in 1990. This immense technological achievement has often been described as “showing the real world as it appears from space” (www.tomvansant.com). But it was also a huge artistic achievement. And it both symbolised and contributed to the decline of the traditional map maker. This is a kind of photograph, and photographs don’t lie.

But think about this claim for just a moment as you look at it: no clouds; daylight around the whole planet; the Atlantic ice at its summer limit. This image is, as the article recognises, “equal parts software and artistic judgement”. Is this “the real world as it appears from space”? Or is it an interpretation, much like any other map? There is no doubt that publication of this image marked a massive milestone for maps in the 20^th century. It seems to be so very different from imperial propaganda maps for example. And yet, as the exhibition explores, maps are by nature unreliable witnesses – misleading their readers as well as informing them.

The label ‘critical cartography’ was coined in the 20^th century to describe a way of looking at maps. Critical geographers questioned their hidden assumptions and compromises, and revealed their inherent unreliability and partial truth. They did so not to invalidate maps, but to understand their power more thoroughly. This approach shared much with ‘critical’ developments in the 20^th century in other areas of life, such as epic theatre, literary theory, cultural geography, and educational policy.

The exhibition explores the profound incursion of maps into everyday life in the 20^th century. At the same time, the profound social, political and cultural changes often hidden in everyday life can also be seen in the development of maps and especially in understanding our relationship to them.

Further Reading:

Wood, Denis. 1992. The Power of Maps, New York/London: The Guilford Press

Harley. J.B. 2001. The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography. (Edited by Paul Laxton). Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Huw Rowlands

 

 

I love panoramas and this one inspired my love of the Alps and mountain mapping.

Heinrich Berann, [Jungfraubahn mountain railroad, Switzerland], 1939. British Library Maps 1060.(4.).

Panoramas form a fascinating niche collection within the 4.5 million maps in the British Library’s collections. They have a long history and my second favourite is the 1851 fabric view of London produced for the Great Exhibition with south at the top and the original ‘Crystal Palace’ laid out in Hyde Park.

Changing mapping technologies have influenced the panorama and its uses in war, discovery and peaceful pursuits especially winter sports.

Heinrich Berann, Atlantic Ocean Floor, 1968. ©National Geographic

The British Library's current exhibition Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line showcases the finest exponent of the late 20^th century, Heinrich Berann (1915-1999) and his panorama of the Atlantic sea-bed.  An Austrian, Berann began with his Grossglockner Hochalpenstraße of 1934 and his final panoramas of U.S. ski areas came out in the mid 1980s.

My favourite is one I discovered while sipping a non-alcoholic beverage in a street café in Interlaken and is a paper beer tray mat with an image of Berann's Bernese Oberland panorama (top image). Under the glass, this utterly stunning piece of art showed the whole area in perfect, sunny weather, a wispy cloud over the Jungfrau, each railway, road and mountain in perfect detail. It made me want to explore more… once the rain clouds had dispersed of course. And it was there to be got wet, scrunched up and thrown in the bin… how!

This map made me realise there was more to maps than an my trusty Ordnance Survey sheet of Hexham, no matter how good they were, and I wanted to discover more about cartography in all its facets.  Berann is no longer with us but his panoramas still inspire cartographers and art lovers alike.

See more of Berann's stunning work here

Maps & the 20th Century: Drawing the Line is now open

Dave Watt

The British Library’s new exhibition Maps & the 20^th century: Drawing the Line will look at the tumultuous 20^th century through the eyes of maps. It is a period which we recognise as one of incredible highs and unimaginable lows, containing episodes ranging from the pinnacles of scientific achievement to the depths of barbarism. This is an exhibition in which we felt it was important not to airbrush the story of the 20^th century, but to look at how maps (which can themselves be controversial objects) present multiple perspectives upon what happened in those 100 years.

As a result, Maps & the 20^th century will cover a number of aspects of history which some might find difficult or controversial. The first is the inclusion of maps produced in association with war, genocide, humanitarian crises and other episodes which led to suffering and loss of life. As tools of war maps can present a compassion-less and cruel version of the world or, on the other hand, one loaded with emotion. What we have done is to use these maps to try and appreciate these events in the spirit of inquiry and respect.

Maps are ‘children of their times’, and as well as providing singular insights on the past this invariably means that they include language, imagery and perceptions of their times, including some which might appear shocking to a contemporary audience. These can, however, enable a perspective upon the changing values of society.

A handful of important non-western 20^th century maps are included in the exhibition. However, the majority of exhibits are European or North American products, produced for audiences based there. This imbalance is not intended to demean or marginalise important non-western mapping practices. It reflects the reality of the 20^th collections of the British Library, and is testament to the success of the imperial mapping project in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries which eradicated much mapping which did not conform to that idea. Much indigenous mapping was, and continues to be in spoken or otherwise ephemeral form more advanced but more difficult to capture than the maps we will display.

A map annotated according to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1915-16.  Map of Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia. London:  Royal Geographical Society,  1916. Add.MS 88906/25/6

Some of the maps we display will show a version of the world which does not correspond with an understanding of the world held by some people. This might concern the location of a border, or even the named ascribed to some places. Whilst not necessarily aligning with any particular world view shown in a map in the exhibition, our reason for exhibiting is to understand why maps should show one certain world view over another. Understanding the motivations of the mapmaker is one of the key methods of unlocking the past through maps, and this is the aim of Maps & the 20^th century: Drawing the Line.

Our exhibition is simply one of many countless stories of the 20^th century that could be told, but we hope that the maps may allow us to look objectively on the recent past, and in so doing help to inform our future.