Add MS 72875 A-BB

PETTY PAPERS. VOL. XXVI A-BB. Manuscript maps by a single unidentified cartographer, of Petty's Hiberniae Delineatio (London, 1685), the first printed atlas of Ireland, based on the Down Survey for those areas which it covered, and on earlier surveys of western areas, chiefly the Strafford survey of 1636-1640; [late 1650s-early 1660s]. There are no scale bars, but the scales are reduced from those of the Down Survey maps as follows: county maps 2 Irish miles to the inch [1:161,240]; province maps 6 Irish miles to the inch [1:1:483,720]; general map 12 Irish miles to the inch [1:967,440]. There are no marks of orientation, but all maps have north at top, except where otherwise indicated. The detail of geographical representation varies considerably, with blanks in some areas, particularly in the province of Ulster, which were not part of the Cromwellian confiscations and therefore not covered by the Down Survey; no further surveys were carried out to supply this detail. The maps are the originals from which the engraved plates were made, and represent 28 of the 37 of those in the printed atlas. Corresponding plate numbers are given in each case below; those missing are the province of Munster, and counties of Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Carlow, Clare, Tipperary, Cork and Antrim; some of those present are also incomplete, as indicated below. There are minor variations between the manuscript and printed maps: in the manuscripts the barony boundaries are in coloured wash and the parish names and boundaries in red; some place-names, misspelled by the Amsterdam engraver, are correct in the manuscripts.

Petty had always intended that his survey of Ireland should answer 'not onely the very ends of satisfying the adventurers and souldiers then in view, but all such other future ends whatsoever as are usually expected from any survey' (History of the ... Down Survey, p. xiv). He therefore instructed his surveyors to record the barony boundaries and other topographical information, and at an early stage planned to publish a general topographical atlas of Ireland. The barony maps which he retained in his possession were evidently intended for this purpose, and maps of Galway, Roscommon and Clare, not included in any previous survey, were especially prepared. Petty obtained from a grant from Charles II in 1660 for 'a privilege and sole sale' of the atlas, and in February 1661 he discussed its compilation with John Petty (see Add. 72850 above; see also Add. 72878, ff. 87-88). The engraving was put in hand at his expense in Amsterdam by unidentified engravers, carried out from the early 1660s onwards and completed by 1675. The original maps and the copper plates were returned to London, where they were printed and published in 1685. A hand-coloured copy with labels in Petty's hand is B.L. Map Library C.21.e.6. See also Goblet, Transformation, II, pp. 157-158; J. H. Andrews, 'Introduction to Hiberniae Delineatio by Sir William Petty', a facsimile edition for Irish University Press (Shannon, 1969); and R. A. Skelton, County Atlases of the British Isles (1978), pp. 161-167.

All ink and coloured washes on paper. Mounted and backed with cloth.