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Monday, 1 November 2010

Mappy Monday - London, the metropolitan maze

I used to make part of my living by selling books and ephemera, and I even did some publishing on a very small scale. I discovered very quickly that people were particularly interested in London, and maps were also popular. So if you had maps of London to sell, you couldn't go wrong. I don't sell maps any more, but here are some from my collection.

From Collins London Atlas and Guide 1896

From Collins London Atlas and Guide 1896
Chelsea 1902
Finsbury 1906
There are some very good (free) online map resources for London:

MAPCO has selection of high-definition maps of London, and some other places too.

The Charles Booth Online Archive contains the results of his survey into life and labour of the London poor (1883-1903) including extensive notebooks and his famous colour-coded maps

The British Library has an online gallery London: a life in maps with some interesting features

MOTCO contains ten London maps between 1702 and 1862, most of them with street indexes

The Museum of London also has an interesting digital map, Streetmuseum which is not online, but is an  iPhone app
at

5 comments:

  1. TCasteelMonday, 01 November, 2010

    Great resources! thank you for sharing!

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  2. NancyMonday, 01 November, 2010

    Your London maps are beautiful! Though I don't have ancestors from London (that I know of yet) I have British ancestors. I'm going to look at your resources and see if they offer more than London maps.

    Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging your family history and other genealogy interests.

    Nancy from My Ancestors and Me at http://nancysfamilyhistoryblog.blogspot.com

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  3. Audrey CollinsMonday, 01 November, 2010

    Thank you for your comments. I have a many more maps of London and several other places. I shall post a selection of them, as time permits

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  4. direcleitThursday, 11 November, 2010

    On the topic of maps, I find it extremely useful being able to retrace the footsteps of each enumerator, especially in rural areas but also in urban areas like London where redevelopment has resulted in many 'lost' locations, the renaming of roads and so-forth.
    I apologise if this is a little 'off-topic' but it is an aspect of the data that is easily overlooked yet can be of considerable assistance to researchers.
    All the best,
    Peter

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  5. Audrey CollinsFriday, 12 November, 2010

    Peter, I couldn't agree with you more, and I think you are very much ON-topic.

    I have occasionally found maps on the title pages of enumeration districts, usually drawn by the enumerators. I even found one example where a street map had been carefully cut up and the appropriate sections pasted onto the title pages of each enumeration district.

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