A Bird’s Eye View of Europe 1830

A Bird’s Eye View of Europe in 1830, drawn by William Heath

The map is signed ‘Peter Pry’, which is William Heath’s occasional pseudonym. Europe in 1830 was marked by a wave of uprisings and revolutions, in France, Belgium, Poland, Italy and Switzerland, which led in France and Belgium to the establishment of constitutional monarchies, and in Poland to its integration into Russia by Czar Nicholas I. The United Kingdom was enjoying a period of relative calm – in this year William IV succeeded to the throne, and the world’s first intercity passenger railway opened between Manchester and Liverpool.