Add MS 57636-57722

Maps of military engagements, camps, fortifications actual and projected, etc., in places throughout the world, from the map collections of the Royal United Services Institution; 1672-1919. Partly French, German, Dutch, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Modern Greek. 57699, f. 13 and 57707, f. 1 have place-names in Malay and the language of the Onondaga Indians of Canada respectively. The collections were formed by deposit of maps by serving officers and Government departments, and by donations of single items and collections from the foundation of the Institution in 1831: at the time of their acquisition by the then British Museum Library in 1968, they were the finest collection of military maps still in private hands, and the largest collection of maps ever acquired by the Library. The collection as a whole was formerly kept in four main groups: the 'A', 'HJ', 'B', and 'V' collections, of which the A and HJ collections are the most important. The A collection includes the working maps collected by Field Marshal Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst (b.1717, d.1797), commander-in-chief in North America 1759-1763. These were presented to the R.U.S.I. in 1861 by the General's great-nephew, William Pitt Amherst, 2nd Earl Amherst. All these maps have a numeration preceded by an 'A' or a 'C', all in pencil and sometimes obscured by the modern binding. Some are also endorsed 'for General Amherst'. A smaller body of maps in the A collection was presented or possibly bequeathed to the Institution circa 1835 by Col. Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, K.C.B., R.H.A. (b.1776, d.1835), who may have acquired the maps when he held the post of Inspector of the Ordnance Carriage Department at Woolwich in 1827. There are also a small number of maps marked 'R A D' followed by a date (not that of the map in question); these belonged to the writer, collector and recluse Richard Alfred (not Alexander) Davenport (b.[1777?], d.1852). The HJ collection once belonged to Lt.-Gen. Sir Henry David Jones G.C.B., R.E. (b.1791, d.1866) and was almost certainly acquired by him, possibly as the archive of a school of artillery, when he was attached as a commissioner to the Prussian Army between 1815 and 1818. The HJ maps have a separate numeration apart from that of the R.U.S.I. labels, and many have two other numbers, which may represent the numbering of the original Prussian collection and a later numbering by Jones. In the B and V collections, the largest group of maps (in the V section) is that of maps drawn or copied by Lt.-Col. Frederick W. Hamilton, Grenadier Guards, but in both collections there are a considerable number of Continental military maps very similar to those in the HJ collection. They have a similar numeration and may be from the same source. They are also very closely related to the campaign and battle plans in Add. 51052. The printed maps from the R.U.S.I. collection are now housed in the Map Library. Almost all the items still have a coloured label stamped with the R.U.S.I. number, and many have numbers from their collections of origin; these are cited in the individual descriptions. See also Add. 71232 A-O, Supplementary R.U.S.I. Maps; fourteen large rolled maps, transferred from the Map Library in Nov. 1992. Purchased from the Royal United Services Institution, with the aid of a contribution from the National Art-Collections Fund, April 1968 and incorporated Oct. 1972, with the exception of Add. 57641, f. 4, which was incorporated in 1989.

Ink and wash, or ink and watercolours, on paper, except where otherwise stated. Eighty-seven volumes. British Library arrangement, alphabetically within geographical areas, except for Add. 57704-57712, arranged geographically, and extra-large maps, which have been bound in separate volumes. Arranged as follows;–

A. British Isles: 57636-57638

B. Southern Europe: 57639-57643

C. Northern Europe: 57644-57670

D. Eastern Europe, with the Balkans: 57671-57690

E. Russia: 57691-57694

F. Africa, Asia: 57695-57700

G. North America: 57701-57716

H. Central and South America, the Atlantic and the Pacific: 57717-57719

I. Miscellaneous: 57720-57722