Christopher Saxton and the Mapping of Britain
The history of the making of maps should be a source for historians at at least three levels; the geographical, the technical and the political. An exhibition has recently opened at the British Library commemorating the work of Christopher Saxton, 'the father of English cartography' and a short book, Christopher Saxton and Tudor Mapmaking by Sarah
The authors make the point: 'As the idea of taking some sort of actual survey of the kingdom and its parts was developing in the mid-sixteenth century, so were the related techniques of draughtsmaniship and of surveying itself'. Thus, the interest of the exhibition does not lie simply in a sequential chronology of improved maps, growing more accurate as various parts of the country are accorded their correct orientation and an accurate scale; nor necessarily in the increasingly sophisticated surveying instruments which make these advances possible. Questions are also raised as to why the maps were commissioned at a particular time. Under whose patronage were they undertaken? What purpose were particular maps to serve? Indeed, the poster for the exhibition and the cover of the book portray a section of one of Christopher Saxton's maps with a caricature of a cartographer at work superimposed.
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