57 Benjamin Baker 1791

Benjamin Baker (1766-1824) was born in London into a family of instrument-makers. At the age of fifteen or sixteen Baker was briefly apprenticed to a local watchmaker, but after two months transferred to the workshop of the map and lettering engraver William Palmer (1732-1812), a close neighbour of the Bakers, in New Street Square. Palmer’s reputation was considerable. From his workshop came a number of engravers who were to make a name for themselves in the field of mapmaking - John Cary, John Russell, Robert Rowe, John Lodge, and Benjamin Baker.¹ After his apprenticeship, Baker worked for fifteen years from premises in Islington. In 1804 Baker was appointed principal engraver to the Ordnance Survey. For the remainder of his career he led the team of engravers assembled, initially at the Tower of London, to work on the original series of the famous one-inch maps.

John Hinton produced the The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure with the first, and arguably more attractive, series of maps between 1747 and 1766 (32). This was followed from 1791 by a second series of English and Welsh county maps. Benjamin Baker engraved most of this series of maps for the Universal Magazine and published by William Bent, at the Kings Arms, Pater-noster row before they were published in atlases. Devon first appeared in November 1791.

Robert Laurie and James Whittle acquired the plates some time between 1804 and 1806 and reprinted the maps with two pages of text giving a description of the county, antiquities, seats and a list of fairs and markets in 1807. This atlas maps were reissued in 1816 and 1821, however, Robert Laurie had retired by then and was replaced by his son, Richard Holmes Laurie (fl. 1814-d. 1858). R H Laurie took over the firm in 1818 on the death of James Whittle and traded under his own name. He must have begun to re-engrave the imprints on the plates but have discontinued before all were amended. The 1846 atlas mentioned below has a title page naming both James Whittle and Richard Holmes Laurie but although Devon now has an imprint naming Laurie alone, nine other counties still have the original imprints.²

Size 180 x 227 mm.                                                                                                                                                 Scale of Miles (15 = 34 mm).

DEVONSHIRE with signature Engrav’d By B. Baker. Islington. In border Longitude West from London. (BeOS).   (DevA), (DEI).