I got sucked into one of those local history puzzles that emanated from the Thanet Life blog this week. The puzzle involved dating the map shown.I thought I had solved the conundrum of the map, it is a prime example of how local history is inclined to tell us lies, because the further back one goes in time the less people are able to produce accuracy added to this is that one book tends to copy the mistakes of the previous book.
I think what happened that around 1800 someone did a fairly decent private commercial survey of The Isle of Thanet, all the earlier maps that I have ever seen show something that is essential the wrong shape, see the map of 1732 at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/id51.htm
The earliest fairly accurate map or Thanet that I can put a date to, that I have is 1800 it comes from my copy of Hasted’s History of Kent http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tol/map_of_thanet_about_1800.htm
as you can see it is considerably more primitive than Hinds’s map, the earliest Thanet map I have that looks the right shape is in my 1809 guide produced by Hogben Surveyor Margate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/id213.htm 
Anyway you have to appreciate that no one surveyor prior to the triangulation of the whole country and the publication of the Ordnance Survey map in 1819, made one survey and got the shape of Thanet right.
Looking at the 1819 OS map I don’t think Hinds used this for the basis of his map so either he drew it before 1819 or was scared of the copyright implications.
Anyway once he had drawn his map he stuck with it, here is the 1872 edition of the same map http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/id211.htm
copied from Charles Busson’s The Book of Ramsgate. With railway corrections showing the railway built in 1863 rather proving the point.So how much Mr Hinds copied from other maps and how much he surveyed himself is a matter of conjecture, however I suspect when he drew the map of Ramsgate in 1849
he may have had more than a passing glance at Collard and Hurst’s map of 1822 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tol/map_of_ramsgate_in_1822.htm
However it is as well to remember that the first triangulation survey of England in 1787 was made for military purposes the first survey using trigonometry was started in 1791 so in the late 1700s and early 1800s was pretty much rocket science.
Why your house doesn’t appear where it should I just don’t know, I can’t however imagine that either Hogben or Hinds could have cover the whole island with theodolite and compass.
Well I thought that was that but something about the 1872 edition of the map niggled at me last night, it was that it shows the parish boundary or St Lawrence and the boundary of Ramsgate Cinque Port but it doesn’t show other parish boundaries. Now these two boundaries are not on the earlier edition of the map I was trying to date. So I looked in the main history of St Lawrence written by Charles Cotton and published in 1895 facing page 14 is the map that Busson calls the 1872 map of Thanet. It is fairly obvious that the parish boundaries were added to the map in 1895 as it is facing a page about the parish boundaries. It is also obvious that this is where Busson copied it from, although he doesn’t say so. Why he should call a map published in 1895 an 1872 map of Thanet is beyond me.
Now looking at the first map I am fairly certain that it was drawn between 1791 and 1810 this hinges on the way Ramsgate Harbour is shown. If you look carefully you will see that the harbour cross wall has two gates and a further opening at the western end. Now in Smeaton’s plan of the harbour in 1791 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Smeaton/ you will see that the cross wall has only one set of gates but does not extend quite as far as the west pier. The next plan of Ramsgate Harbour I have is 1817 this shows two sets of gates and the cross wall extending all the way to the west pier. As Hinds was a Ramsgate surveyor I don’t think he would have made a mistake about the shape of Ramsgate harbour and I feel this map must date from between when the second gate was put in the cross wall and the cross wall extended to the west pier.
My guess is that that Cotton wanted in 1895 to use a map of Thanet that was not subject to copyright and so drew the parish boundaries and the railways on and that Busson when he used the map from cotton guessed the date of the map from the railways.
The final act of misinformation that I have found so far is that in section 8 of The Ramsgate Millennium Book where the map is dated 1872 so there you have it, our main source of Ramsgate history patently wrong.
I should add that it would have been most unusual to write an s in the shape of an f after 1820.
You have to be rather tenacious to make any progress with local history.
However it is as well to remember that the first triangulation survey of England in 1787 was made for military purposes the first survey using trigonometry was started in 1791 so in the late 1700s and early 1800s was pretty much rocket science.
Why your house doesn’t appear where it should I just don’t know, I can’t however imagine that either Hogben or Hinds could have cover the whole island with theodolite and compass.
Well I thought that was that but something about the 1872 edition of the map niggled at me last night, it was that it shows the parish boundary or St Lawrence and the boundary of Ramsgate Cinque Port but it doesn’t show other parish boundaries. Now these two boundaries are not on the earlier edition of the map I was trying to date. So I looked in the main history of St Lawrence written by Charles Cotton and published in 1895 facing page 14 is the map that Busson calls the 1872 map of Thanet. It is fairly obvious that the parish boundaries were added to the map in 1895 as it is facing a page about the parish boundaries. It is also obvious that this is where Busson copied it from, although he doesn’t say so. Why he should call a map published in 1895 an 1872 map of Thanet is beyond me.
Now looking at the first map I am fairly certain that it was drawn between 1791 and 1810 this hinges on the way Ramsgate Harbour is shown. If you look carefully you will see that the harbour cross wall has two gates and a further opening at the western end. Now in Smeaton’s plan of the harbour in 1791 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Smeaton/ you will see that the cross wall has only one set of gates but does not extend quite as far as the west pier. The next plan of Ramsgate Harbour I have is 1817 this shows two sets of gates and the cross wall extending all the way to the west pier. As Hinds was a Ramsgate surveyor I don’t think he would have made a mistake about the shape of Ramsgate harbour and I feel this map must date from between when the second gate was put in the cross wall and the cross wall extended to the west pier.
My guess is that that Cotton wanted in 1895 to use a map of Thanet that was not subject to copyright and so drew the parish boundaries and the railways on and that Busson when he used the map from cotton guessed the date of the map from the railways.
The final act of misinformation that I have found so far is that in section 8 of The Ramsgate Millennium Book where the map is dated 1872 so there you have it, our main source of Ramsgate history patently wrong.
I should add that it would have been most unusual to write an s in the shape of an f after 1820.
You have to be rather tenacious to make any progress with local history.
That's some pretty good detective work - well done you. Our history now seems ten times more interesting. thanks.
ReplyDeleteMatt what always surprises me is how recent the early-confused period is in Thanet’s history and that it is often quite difficult to get accurate information about major events within living memory.
ReplyDeleteI am especially concerned at the moment because we are about to lose our two museums, I think that the council have in a sense lost the plot over taking economic advantage of our heritage that is much richer and more varied that in many other areas.