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Old County Maps

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St Austell, Cornwall The maps

Sources, Copyright, Disclaimer

 Your Questions Answered

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Other Maps

So, I have this old encyclopedia, with beautifully printed, immensely detailed county maps dating back to the 1880s, and I thought of putting them on line. They could be useful for family historians, as they show the county boundaries and the main roads and railways as they were at that time.

The Maps
Cornwall 1878

Gloucestershire 1880

Herefordshire 1880

Staffordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire 1886

Warwickshire 1888

Wiltshire 1888

Worcestershire 1888

Sources, Copyright, Disclaimers

 Maps on this page were scanned in from the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. These volumes were published by Adam and Charles Black and Co., of Edinburgh between 1870 and 1890.
After the 11th edition, the rights to the Britannica name were sold to what is now the Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. who own that name as a trademark, and are naturally keen to enforce their copyright in the material that they published in the later editions.
However, copyright in editions prior to the 12th has lapsed, if I understand copyright law correctly, and they don't claim copyright in editions prior to 1922. As their own online copyright information demonstrates. So, to the best of my knowledge, the source material for these maps is in the public domain; and so far as I'm concerned, the images on these pages, from my own scans, are in the public domain. i.e. use them freely on your own web pages, or whatever else you want to do with them

One last disclaimer: this site has no connection with the actual Encyclopedia Britannica , and is neither sponsored nor authorised by them. But look at them anyway. Damn fine stuff on their site.

Your Questions Answered

Are you thinking of doing a map for the county of XXXXX?
I don't know whether I could afford enough Web space for a full set of county maps, but there should be room for a couple more at least before I have to start paying for more storage space. Currently, I've (semi-randomly) selected Oxfordshire as the next map, on-line by the end of January if I can get myself organised to do it....

Do you know where a place called XXXX is?
Probably not, but if it's somewhere in Southern Worcestershire or Northern Gloucestershire, I might be able to help.
Alternatively, and probably quicker than emailing me with a query, GENUKI has a gazetteers page, at www.genuki.org.uk/big/Gazetteers.html. One of the options there is to search a directory of old place names, which is useful for finding places listed in an old census return..

Can I use bits of your maps on my Web page?
If it's for non-commercial purposes, go ahead. Just acknowledge where you got it from, and let me know what you're doing - it gratifies my ego, and I get to see all kinds of interesting pages. If you ask nicely, I can make a custom image for your page, directly from the original map scans, rather than your having to piece a map together from individual squares....

Other Maps

There is a directory with links to a large number of historic maps available on-line, at freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/index.html

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For Comments, suggestions, etc. follow: this link

Last modified 4th Dec 2002 - Malcolm Farmer