Robert Hooke and the Cartographical Projects of the Late Seventeenth Century (1666-1696)
1937; Wiley; Volume: 90; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1787651
ISSN1475-4959
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Geography and Cartography
ResumoTHE Great Fire of London changed many lives. John Ogilby, the elderly Master of the King's Revels in Ireland, lost the entire stock of his printing and bookselling establishment in Fleet Street, and had to start business afresh. Fortunately however there was plenty of work to be done. Both Ogilby and his young kinsman and assistant, William Morgan, obtained from the Corporation of London appointments as sworn viewers of the devastated City, in which obliterated property boundaries had to be re-established. Almost simultaneously Robert Hooke, then Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, accepted a City Surveyorship in connection with the rebuilding schemes. His promptly produced model (or rather plan) of a New London, exhibited at the Royal Society's meeting on 19 September 1666, had struck members of the Corporation invited there to see it as a far finer piece of work than the official plan submitted by their own chief Surveyor. Hence this new appointment. Circumstances thus brought Ogilby and Hooke into close professional contact, and opportunity arose for the latter's universal genius to be brought to bear upon the cartographical projects which were soon to be associated with Ogilby's name. Nearly a century had passed since Saxton first surveyed the English counties. Ogilby proposed to re-survey them, and to prepare besides a series of accurate plans of the principal cities of the realm.
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