Aaron Arrowsmith

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Aaron Arrowsmith

Aaron Arrowsmith (born July 14, 1750 in Winston , County Durham , Great Britain , † April 23, 1823 in London , Great Britain) was an English cartographer , engraver and publisher and founder of the Arrowsmith family of geographers.

Life

Aaron Arrowsmith was the son of a land tenant and was initially supposed to pursue the same profession, but then devoted himself to mathematics and geography . In 1770, at the age of 20, he came to Soho Square , London, and was employed by John Cary, the engraver, and William Faden. For their publisher "Cary's Traveller's Companion" he carried out several researches, which were published in 1790, and in the same year founded his own company in Long Acre . Around 1810 he became the hydrograph of the Prince of Wales and in 1820 a royal cartographer.

In January 1790 he presented his famous large map of the world in Mercator projection . Four years later he published another large world map in globular projection , along with an accompanying volume with explanations. The maps of North America (1796) and Scotland (1807) are the best known of his many later works. Its numerous maps are artistically excellent, but only those of Great Britain deserve praise for scientific accuracy.

Aaron Arrowsmith died in London on April 23, 1823, at the age of 72.

family

He left two sons, Samuel and Aaron, the elder of whom was the compiler of the "Eton Comparative Atlas", a biblical atlas, and various handbooks of geography.

His nephew, John Arrowsmith (1790–1873), has also made a name for himself as a cartographer, among other things through the "London Atlas of universal geography" (1832–1837) as well as through school maps and maps of travel books of the time. He continued to run the business and in 1821 published a complete map of North America, a combination of Hudson's Bay Company maps and Aaron's previous maps. He continued to work on an atlas with detailed and carefully checked maps of Australia , New Zealand , America , Africa and India , the latter of which were particularly valuable. In 1863 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society , the third oldest geographic society on earth, of which John Arrowsmith was a founder.

He drew numerous maps that achieved an extraordinary reputation for their neat and tidy execution, but which, on closer inspection, they did not live up to in the long run. Arrowsmith was a very avid data collector, but he was not very sensible with them. His cards were very useful and commendable, but they contained many large and grave errors.

In total, the Arrowsmiths published over seven hundred maps, making them one of the dominant London map publishers by around 1860.

Issued cards

The map shows all the new discoveries in mainland North America, published by Aaron Arrowsmith on January 1, 1795
  • World map in Mercator projection , presents all new discoveries at the present time with the traces of the most important seafarers since the year 1700, carefully created from the best tables, maps, travel & Co , 1790 (8 pages)
  • A map showing all new discoveries in inland North America , January 1, 1795 (Other editions 1801, 1802, 1804 and 1816 also show roads)
  • Map series of the South Pacific , 1798
  • A new map of Africa , 1802
  • Maps of the West Indies and the Spanish dominion in North America , 1803 (4 pages)
  • A new map of Mexico and its adjacent provinces, compiled from the original documents. , 1810 (4 pages)
  • Map of countries around the North Pole , 1818
  • Ogden Map (North America) , 1821 (2nd edition: 1834)

Honors

Mount Arrowsmith , east of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island , British Columbia , Canada , is named after Aaron Arrowsmith and his nephew John Arrowsmith.

literature

Web links

Commons : Aaron Arrowsmith  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Arrowsmith . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 1, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 870.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Aaron Arrowsmith in the Engl. Wikipedia , accessed August 23, 2014
  3. ↑ a b c www.mostlymaps.com/reference/Map-Makers/aaron-arrowsmith ( Memento of August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 15, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Arrowsmith, Aaron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English cartographer and hydrograph
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Winston , Kingdom of Great Britain
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1823
Place of death London , UK