Name: John Ogilby
Dates: 1600-1676
Map Type: Copper plate engraved road maps (the original 'strip maps').
John Ogilby is certainly best known for his master-work, the Britannia first published in 1675. With a title similar to many others of the age, the content could not have been any more different. Ogilby's vision was to collate information from surveys taken construct and publish a working collection of accurate and useful road maps. This was no easy task and the finished product was a long time coming after a seriously rocky ride.
His famous 'strip-map' design included all the relevant information required of a road map, both for the traveller and the scholar. For the traveller, the strips include the direction in which the road goes, depicted via a compass rose. The distance from the starting point measured in miles is also there, as are various graphics denoting hills as a simple indication of whether the road is going up or down hill. The road is depicted as a ribbon scroll, suggesting following the ribbon from bottom to top of the page. The adjoining roads and their destinations are also mentioned, particularly the road to town or city of note crosses the road of the title.
Getting to this point in Britannia's development involved a number of logistic and legal hurdles. One of the more significant, and one with perhaps the longest term effect, was his decision to invoke the use of the statute English mile. One of the issues Ogilby faced in creating road maps that crossed county boundaries was that, in many cases, different counties recognised different lengths of mile. Add Scot's miles, Roman, Saxon and Irish miles to the mix and Ogilby's notion of an accurate road atlas needed help from higher powers.
He took his notion of using the Statute mile, which had already been established, defined by and English act of Parliament in 1593 at 1760 yards, but had never been universally used and put into practice. As with most government decisions, it took a number of years to get an answer, but Ogilby's request was eventually approved, and the Statute Mile allowed him create his maps, crossing all county borders in England and Wales without needing to change scale.
His creation was ground breaking work and the maps are avidly collected today for their quirky style, detailed content and quality craftsmanship. He also produced a number of other maps including some stunning maps of various parts of Africa and Asia.
Ogilby, the man, had a far from easy life: twice consigned to the debtors prison, and twice losing everything: once in an English Civil war shipwreck in around 1643, and then again in the Great Fire of London in 1666. One positive came for Ogilby from this disaster and that was he was given the task of surveying the remains of the city in order to establish who owned which remaining parts.
In 1674 he was named to the rather more secure position of His Majesty's Cosmographer and Geographic Printer. Having worked and struggled throughout his life, Ogilby held this more solid position for only two years. He died in London ten years after the fire in 1676, the year after his Britannia was published.
His famous 'strip-map' design included all the relevant information required of a road map, both for the traveller and the scholar. For the traveller, the strips include the direction in which the road goes, depicted via a compass rose. The distance from the starting point measured in miles is also there, as are various graphics denoting hills as a simple indication of whether the road is going up or down hill. The road is depicted as a ribbon scroll, suggesting following the ribbon from bottom to top of the page. The adjoining roads and their destinations are also mentioned, particularly the road to town or city of note crosses the road of the title.
Getting to this point in Britannia's development involved a number of logistic and legal hurdles. One of the more significant, and one with perhaps the longest term effect, was his decision to invoke the use of the statute English mile. One of the issues Ogilby faced in creating road maps that crossed county boundaries was that, in many cases, different counties recognised different lengths of mile. Add Scot's miles, Roman, Saxon and Irish miles to the mix and Ogilby's notion of an accurate road atlas needed help from higher powers.
He took his notion of using the Statute mile, which had already been established, defined by and English act of Parliament in 1593 at 1760 yards, but had never been universally used and put into practice. As with most government decisions, it took a number of years to get an answer, but Ogilby's request was eventually approved, and the Statute Mile allowed him create his maps, crossing all county borders in England and Wales without needing to change scale.
His creation was ground breaking work and the maps are avidly collected today for their quirky style, detailed content and quality craftsmanship. He also produced a number of other maps including some stunning maps of various parts of Africa and Asia.
Ogilby, the man, had a far from easy life: twice consigned to the debtors prison, and twice losing everything: once in an English Civil war shipwreck in around 1643, and then again in the Great Fire of London in 1666. One positive came for Ogilby from this disaster and that was he was given the task of surveying the remains of the city in order to establish who owned which remaining parts.
In 1674 he was named to the rather more secure position of His Majesty's Cosmographer and Geographic Printer. Having worked and struggled throughout his life, Ogilby held this more solid position for only two years. He died in London ten years after the fire in 1676, the year after his Britannia was published.