the best plan, measurement, and actual Survey of city or District, it might move the attention of the public towards Geography. In time, perhaps, [this might even] incline the Administration to take this matter into their hands (as I am informed it does in some foreign Countries) and employ proper persons every year from actual surveys to make accurate Maps of Districts, till the whole Island is regularly surveyed.
On Baker’s recommendation, the Society of Arts duly agreed to establish a regular prize of up to £ 100 to ‘give proper surveyors such Encouragement as may induce them to make accurate Surveys of two or three Counties towards completing the whole’. Its members hoped that the Society of Arts’ competition would result in the production of a series of accurate maps of Britain’s counties that could be pieced together like a jigsaw into a full national survey. These maps would be created using the most up-to-date methods and instruments, on a uniform scale of one inch to one mile. And the Society also tried to accelerate the painfully lethargic progress of British cartography by stipulating that candidates must complete their surveys within one, or at most two, years. Its members were enthused by the possibility that the resulting maps would be ‘of great use in planning any scheme for the Improvement of the Highways, making Rivers Navigable and providing other means for the Ease and Advancement of the National Commerce’.
The Society of Arts advertised its first prize of £ 100 for the map-making competition in 1759. The response was somewhat underwhelming. In its first six years, only eleven candidates applied for the prize, out of whom a mere two were successful. Some applicants were full-time map-makers or estate surveyors, who could use the products of their day-to-day work in the task; but others were teachers, publishers or map-sellers, who were forced to work around other commitments. In the event, only one professional county surveyor applied and many candidates were put off by the meagreness of the prize. £ 100 was not adequate to fund such maps as the Society envisaged. The cost of instruments, assistants and above all the time required to makea good county map could exceed twenty times that amount, as one of the winning candidates discovered. The Society’s prize acted as a gratifying award once the work had been completed, but it was not a proper salary.
The competition’s time-limit also dissuaded many potential applicants. One year to map an entire county from scratch was terrifyingly rapid, and many contenders were forced to apply for extensions. Benjamin Donn, a teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy from Bideford, began his survey of Devon shortly after the Society first advertised its competition, but he did not publish it until 1 January 1765. Another candidate took seven years to complete a map of Somerset. The productions of other applicants were rejected by the Society for a variety of reasons: some petty, some sensible. Unsuccessful candidates were refused on the grounds of their maps’ inaccuracy; failure to pay the Society of Arts’ annual subscription; incompletion of the map or insolvency; ineligibility on the grounds that they had not declared entrance to the competition prior to beginning surveying; and the submission of a map that had been begun for another purpose many years before the contest was advertised in 1759.
Between the beginning of the map-making competition and the last official prize offered in 1802 the Society of Arts paid out a mere £ 460 in cash, plus seven medals and a silver palette, in reward for only thirteen county surveys . The accuracy and topographical detail of these maps showed a considerable improvement on their predecessors, but the Society of Arts’ competition had failed to compile Britain’s first complete, accurate national survey on a uniform scale. Nevertheless, the event was a notable stepping stone in the progress of
On Baker’s recommendation, the Society of Arts duly agreed to establish a regular prize of up to £ 100 to ‘give proper surveyors such Encouragement as may induce them to make accurate Surveys of two or three Counties towards completing the whole’. Its members hoped that the Society of Arts’ competition would result in the production of a series of accurate maps of Britain’s counties that could be pieced together like a jigsaw into a full national survey. These maps would be created using the most up-to-date methods and instruments, on a uniform scale of one inch to one mile. And the Society also tried to accelerate the painfully lethargic progress of British cartography by stipulating that candidates must complete their surveys within one, or at most two, years. Its members were enthused by the possibility that the resulting maps would be ‘of great use in planning any scheme for the Improvement of the Highways, making Rivers Navigable and providing other means for the Ease and Advancement of the National Commerce’.
The Society of Arts advertised its first prize of £ 100 for the map-making competition in 1759. The response was somewhat underwhelming. In its first six years, only eleven candidates applied for the prize, out of whom a mere two were successful. Some applicants were full-time map-makers or estate surveyors, who could use the products of their day-to-day work in the task; but others were teachers, publishers or map-sellers, who were forced to work around other commitments. In the event, only one professional county surveyor applied and many candidates were put off by the meagreness of the prize. £ 100 was not adequate to fund such maps as the Society envisaged. The cost of instruments, assistants and above all the time required to makea good county map could exceed twenty times that amount, as one of the winning candidates discovered. The Society’s prize acted as a gratifying award once the work had been completed, but it was not a proper salary.
The competition’s time-limit also dissuaded many potential applicants. One year to map an entire county from scratch was terrifyingly rapid, and many contenders were forced to apply for extensions. Benjamin Donn, a teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy from Bideford, began his survey of Devon shortly after the Society first advertised its competition, but he did not publish it until 1 January 1765. Another candidate took seven years to complete a map of Somerset. The productions of other applicants were rejected by the Society for a variety of reasons: some petty, some sensible. Unsuccessful candidates were refused on the grounds of their maps’ inaccuracy; failure to pay the Society of Arts’ annual subscription; incompletion of the map or insolvency; ineligibility on the grounds that they had not declared entrance to the competition prior to beginning surveying; and the submission of a map that had been begun for another purpose many years before the contest was advertised in 1759.
Between the beginning of the map-making competition and the last official prize offered in 1802 the Society of Arts paid out a mere £ 460 in cash, plus seven medals and a silver palette, in reward for only thirteen county surveys . The accuracy and topographical detail of these maps showed a considerable improvement on their predecessors, but the Society of Arts’ competition had failed to compile Britain’s first complete, accurate national survey on a uniform scale. Nevertheless, the event was a notable stepping stone in the progress of
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