37 Emanuel Bowen 1754

John Hinton initially published the maps in the Large English Atlas as a series beginning in 1749 and intended to be issued monthly. The only large format county maps available were reprints of Saxton or Speed, Blaeu or Jansson (Morden’s Britannia maps were neither sold singly nor as an atlas).

Hinton engaged Emanuel Bowen and Thomas Kitchin to engrave a set of large scale county maps with up-to-date details. The map of Sussex appeared in May 1749 and the first five maps appeared monthly as planned. After that progress was haphazard. In 1752, after 25 maps had been completed, Hinton pulled out and handed over to John Tinney (fl.1721-61), a prominent map and print seller who was in business in 1734 and selling maps as early as 1737.

In April 1754 the first five of Tinney’s commissioned maps appeared including Devon. Three more maps appeared in 1755. After this time Tinney, probably for financial reasons, went into partnership with members of the Bowles family and Robert Sayer, all successful print sellers. Eight further maps followed, the last in 1760, with the last three by a different engraver. The first advertisement for the Atlas by name appeared in May 1760.

The ownership continually changed hands as the various shares were sold or exchanged. Carington Bowles left his father, John, in 1764 and took over his uncle’s business. In 1767 both he and Robert Sayer produced atlases with their own title pages. Robert Wilkinson acquired John’s interest in 1779. These changes are reflected in the imprints and title pages. However, it is apparent that old stock of maps and title pages were used to make up atlases. To add to the confusion the maps were sold singly and moreover by others. Thomas Jefferys sold copies in a slipcase but cut so tightly that page numbers and imprints were lost. Robert Sayer took over Jefferys stock on his bankruptcy; Sayer died in 1794 and was succeeded by Laurie and Whittle; and Bowles and Carver took over the business of Carington Bowles when he died in 1793. They later sold out to Robert Wilkinson.

Devon was engraved by Emanuel Bowen, map and print seller, who worked in London from about 1714 onwards producing some of the best and most attractive maps of the century. A recurring feature of Bowen’s work, evident even on the early road maps (24), was his habit of filling every corner and space of the map with jottings and footnotes, both historical and topographical which is repeated here and in his later atlases (see especially The Royal English Atlas 42 and for Kitchin´s Atlas Anglicanus 48). Devon was dedicated to John, Duke of Bedford who was Lord Lieutenant of the county. It also had an inset map of Plymouth which was reputedly copied by French spies.¹ Devon was based largely on Morden’s map (20) but was graticuled and the Cornish border was copied from Joel Gascoyne’s large-scale survey of Cornwall. Most maps were also available as a dissected map in slipcase from 1767 onwards. Laurie and Whittle continued to offer the atlas into the early 1800s.

Emanuel Bowen also executed a simpler map for Benjamin Martin´s ambitious The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences 38.

Size 520 x 670 mm.  British Statute Miles (18 = 104 mm).

An ACCURATE MAP OF DEVON SHIRE Divided into its HUNDREDS. Drawn from the best Authorities assisted by the most approved Modern Maps, with various Improvements. Illustrated with HISTORICAL EXTRACTS relative to its Natural produce, Mines, Minerals, Trade, Manufactures and present State of the City of Exeter and the principal Towns, with a Plan of Plymouth By Eman: Bowen Geogr to His Maiesty. Inset map of Plymouth. Imprint: Sold by I. Tinney at the Golden Lion in Fleet Street London. (CeOS).