Yet again historians, geographers, and students of cartography are in debt to the British Library for another great contribution to scholarship in their fields. Although Sarah Bendall, Fellow and Librarian of Merton College, Oxford, has been responsible for preparing this second edition, she is the first to express appreciation, not only of the work done by Peter Eden, her editorial predecessor, and his helpers, but of the several hundred individuals who have assisted her in the compilation of these two volumes. These individuals are listed on pages 121 to 125 of volume one, followed on pages 127 to 137 by an alphabetical list of the repositories. Although it might be thought invidious to mention names, one could not help noticing such names as Ralph Hyde, I.D. Margary, F.W. Steer, R.A. Skelton and Christopher Hussey in the list, as well librarians like J.F.W. Bryon, J.L. Howgego and F.G.B. Hutchings. In the list of repositories there are, in addition to record offices, estate offices, museums, colleges and parish churches, many city and town public libraries such as those of Barrow, Brighton, Nottingham, Reading and Westminster.
Before going further, let us look at the volumes as a whole. Beginning with the second volume, this is a tome of 578 pages devoted entirely to the dictionary of surveyors and map‐makers. The student of county maps of Great Britain and Ireland will look in vain for such familiar names as Robert Morden and John Sellar because this is a dictionary of local map‐makers who have produced maps of estates rather than whole counties. But Christopher Saxton, John Speed and John Cary do appear since they were active in this more localised field.
Turning to volume one, this begins with eight pages of coloured plates which demonstrate the range and variety of Sarah Bendall’s coverage. They include a 1602 map of the village of Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, the title cartouche of a 1635 map of Laxton in Nottinghamshire, and a 1756 map of the manor of Woodstock in Kildare. These illustrations are followed by Sarah Bendall’s own introduction of nearly 60 pages. This is a scholarly piece of research worthy of the closest attention. Not only does it outline the history and development of the dictionary, it also contains much detail about surveying and surveyors, as well as the making of estate maps, military maps, picture maps and other types of cartography. Sarah Bendall says that the map‐makers were often shadowy figures who left little, if any, hint of their names and backgrounds in the documentary record. The dictionary confirms this, since some entries are sparse, yet she and her helpers have succeeded in digging out much information about others. This first volume also has a guide to the use of the dictionary as well as separate indexes of surveyors, the areas in which they practised, the types of maps they produced, and the places where they lived. There is also a general index of more than 50 pages.
It is impossible to praise this work sufficiently. Users will surely be vastly impressed by the amount of work and research which has gone into its preparation. The publication has been made possible by generous grants from the Aurelian Charitable Trust, the Mercers’ Company and an anonymous donor. Sarah Bendall expresses her warm thanks to these donors. So should all present and future readers of these two volumes.
