Bacon’s Pictorial View of the British Isles 1877

Published in 1877 by George Washington Bacon, an American mapmaker who established a successful business at 127 The Strand in London. Oozing the self-confidence and pride of the mid-Victorian era, at a time when British power seemed to be at its zenith, the map portrays everything that was Great about Britain. A piece of cartographic showmanship run riot, it contains no less than six thematic maps: the principal map showing the political and administrative divisions of the United Kingdom, and around it small ethnographical, geological, rainfall, and hypsometric maps and a world map showing the extent of the British Empire. In addition, running around the outer margin of the map, there is a chronology of what Bacon considered to be the principal events in Britain’s two-thousand year history, organised by the successive ruling dynasties. There are also illustrations of Britain’s agricultural, industrial and social advances and achievements over the centuries, the principal sports and pastimes of its citizens and, within the main map, a brief account of the current economic, social and ethnographic state of the different parts of the British Isles. Perhaps unsurprisingly the map was not a commercial success, with maybe too little information for some and too much for others. Bacon’s business of producing maps for the masses was however very successful, capitalising on the early growth of tourism and the popularity of cycling and other health-giving activities.