Dating 18th-century map from ship drawings

[Stephen Gadd]

Hi. I'm trying to date a historical map, and it has been suggested that someone on this forum might recognise particular features of ships drawn on the margin (see below) which might pin the dating down to a particular decade of the 18th century. The map itself (of part of the south coast of England) is very sketchy, and what seems to be an even sketchier copy of it in the same archive collection has accounts scribbled on the back dated 1750.

 

I'd be interested to know the likely occupation of the depicted ships too.

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!

Stephen (on Twitter @docuracy)

 

[bruce d]

Hello Stephen and welcome to MSW. If you are satisfied that the map predates 1750 I may be able to stir things up a bit. Both vessels would be typical of the daily traffic in the Channel at that time and the fact that Number 1 is armed should not lead you to conclude that she was a fighting vessel. Most commercial craft were armed because of the constant threat of being taken. The second looks more interesting to me. It looks like a typical sloop of the mid 18^th century but the most telling feature is the decoration: the stripe created by those painted wales is more typical of the age of Nelson and later.

Can you tell us a little more about the map? Does it focus on a particular aspect of the coast such as shipyards or ports? Does it omit anything obvious? Either can give a good indication of the intended purpose, hence the likely user, and may give a good handle on the date.

 

Also, perspective matters. One of the duties of prospective officers in the navy was to draw the coastline of any area where they were visiting/stationed. These sketches (never named officially but generally referred to as ‘illustrative views’) were graded by their captain or superior lieutenants and the best were sent to the hydrography department to have their features incorporated in maps. This was done in home waters for practice and in foreign waters for effect. The distinguishing feature of these illustrative views was that they were records of what was seen at eye level from the deck of a ship, not projected views as would appear on a finished map. I mention this because the would-be-officers were encouraged to sketch a wide range of craft incorporating details of rigging and deck layout. The drawing materials of the day were charcoal and/or watercolour and the sketches you have posted are consistent with those I have seen.

 

So, perhaps if there is more you can share about the map we may be able to get to specifics.

 

Hope this helps,

Bruce

 

[Stephen Gadd]

Thank you for your really interesting and detailed reply, Bruce, that certainly does help.

 

I'm not supposed to share images of the map itself (roughly 18" x 24"), but I don't think the attached low-resolution screenshots give too much away: most of the time and effort has been put into the ship drawings! In that respect I think it's quite unusual, and it's difficult to understand its rationale: my best guess is that it was produced to record pictorially part of a manorial perambulation that was already well known in textual form (this area is now covered by Bournemouth, and records of this boundary survive from the neighbouring manor of Canford from 1540s); but the map is so poorly proportioned and detailed that it adds little or nothing of value in that regard.

 

Smuggling was a big problem here at least as early as 1680, and I wonder if either of the vessels are of a type that might have been attached to the customs.

 

Stephen

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bruce d]

Hmmmmm….

I do not want to tell you what you already know, but I don’t know what you know, so here goes:

The nearest boat is flying the red ensign. This was used by commercial shipping under the English flag from about 1707 so she is not smuggling, she is legitimate. Also, her colours are consistent with early-mid 18^th century practice.

The further, smaller boat could be an early revenue cutter. She could also be a privateer. The pairing of these two (if the second is in fact a revenue cutter) would make sense as a comforting bit of graphics to illustrate the ability of commerce to function safely under the protection of revenue patrols. However, I will look at some notes on revenue service craft later and comment.

 

My strong impression is that the map is about something happening (or proposed) on land. Do you have any reason to believe that the map is ‘official’ in any way?

 

[Stephen Gadd]

... actually, I see from Customs letter books that sloops and yachts were the customs vessels employed in the area at around this time.

[Stephen Gadd]

I like your reasoning, Bruce, concerning the demonstration of protection of legitimate commerce. No, there's nothing to suggest that the map was in any sense official: it looks to me as though the manorial steward may simply have engaged the map-making services of one of the locally-stationed customs officers.

[bruce d]

After a cup of tea and a browse I should qualify the statement I made earlier:

2 hours ago, bruce d said:

the stripe created by those painted wales is more typical of the age of Nelson and later.

 

At least some revenue craft were painted black during the first half of the 18th century so my comment about the later stripes' could confuse matters.

There is another thing, not conclusive, but worthy of comment. As I recall, there was a protocol for the flying of jacks and pennants by revenue craft. A revenue craft was originally obliged to fly a long pennant for identification and some took to flying the jack as well. This caused friction as they were not part of the English navy. The compromise was that the revenue vessels would display their pennant and were allowed (not required) the jack but must haul it down if in the presence of a vessel 'properly' entitled to fly the jack: in other words, pennant only if in sight of any of His Majesty's ships. That fits the picture, whether by coincidence or design. Make what you will of it.

 

 

[Stephen Gadd]

Wow. So much information (perhaps) encoded in an image which I first saw about 10 years ago, completely oblivious. Thank you.

[uss frolick]

Welcome! You're not the famous drummer of the same name, are you?

 

 

[Stephen Gadd]

Thanks! No! 😆

[druxey]

I believe that the peak of smuggling activity took place in the latter half of the 18th century. This was true particularly during the Napoleonic Wars when French imports could only arrive by nefarious means. The other reason for smuggling was to avoid paying Customs duties (some things haven't changed!). Therefore there were more Revenue cutters to combat this as the century wore on.

 

From the fullness of the bows, I agree that this other vessel represents an armed merchantman.

[Stephen Gadd]

Thanks, yes, judging from the correspondence between the Customs Commissioners and the officers here on the Hampshire coast (a smuggling hot-spot from at least as early as 1680), things certainly hotted up after 1750 in terms of volumes and violence. The Customs sloops and yachts were also replaced with cutters from 1752.

[bruce d]

15 minutes ago, Stephen Gadd said:

The Customs sloops and yachts were also replaced with cutters from 1752.

The later cutters were cutters but 'revenue sloop' was just a term in popular usage by the press and public in the earlier days, not something to be relied on unless it is verified by revenue records. Having said that, they used quite a few sloops and the picture you posted looks like a sloop to me but I will defer to any better informed observation (that's your cue, Druxey).

[druxey]

With all due respect, the image looks more like a typical Revenue cutter of c.1800. However, as there is little hull detail, it's hard to say. I believe that Deal built cutters, heavy and clinker built, were the most common at this time.

[amateur]

I don't know how it was in the UK, but in the Netherlandse (and other "EU-countries") larges sheets of paper were often/always made with a watermark.

This mark can be quite helpfull in dating the map (at least biy providing a time-fence).

 

By the looks of the map itself, I would vote for late, rather than early. Also: the detail of the roads (canals?) are far better drawn than the details of the coastline. My guess would be that the printer of this map did a nice job on the street-layout, and just put a nice lithograph of the ships in the part where there were no streets to display. (in which case he would have copied the nice painting in his (grand)fathers house, and thus display ships of an aera already gone by th date of the map)

 

Jan 

[Stephen Gadd]

7 minutes ago, amateur said:

I don't know how it was in the UK, but in the Netherlandse (and other "EU-countries") larges sheets of paper were often/always made with a watermark.

This mark can be quite helpfull in dating the map (at least biy providing a time-fence).

 

By the looks of the map itself, I would vote for late, rather than early.

 

Jan 

 

That's a really good point, thank you, but in this case the map is drawn on parchment.

[amateur]

Ah well, didn't see that on the pic.

 

All the same, I am a bit puzzled by the fact that it seems tha although the important information is on the 'land-part', more ink has been spent on the ships. 

But on most maritime charts, the compass rose is drawn with at least 8 points, there are some bearings on landmarks etc. This is more like a landowners map, trying to find the best place for his new development....

 

You say there is a copy of the map dated 1750. Does that one have the ships also?

 

Jan

[Stephen Gadd]

Indeed, it is rather puzzling. It's definitely a landowner's map, from his own archive; there's a scale of furlongs but the distances between the known points are way out, and the most significant building known to have existed here in the 18th century is entirely absent (it appears on a coastal survey of 1714). There was no other building development here until 1807.

The '1750' copy is very rough, and is on paper but without any discernable watermark. The writing on the back appears entirely unconnected with the map itself, being a note of rent collections but not from this district, which suggests to me that by 1750 it was being used as scrap paper. The ships are omitted, but the sections of coastline and estate boundary have compass directions marked; alternative lines for the boundary have been erased, leading me to suspect that if not a draft for the neat version, then it was perhaps a copy of the neat version and made in connection with an unidentified legal case - it has a label 'W1' characteristic of documents produced as evidence. The boundary remained in dispute until 1805.

 

Anyway, this lack of clarity in other evidence explains why I was hoping that the ship drawings might help!