map HMCMS:FA1991.24

Creator: Dummer, Edmund

Description: Map, A Survey of the Ports on the South West Coast of England from Dover to the Lands-end, made by Edmund Dummer and Captain Thomas Wiltshaw, Royal Navy, 1698.

Notes: Edmund Dummer was appointed Surveyor to the Navy at Portsmouth, Hampshire, he was officer in charge of dockyard stores and ship maintenance. In 1698 he initiated a plan to survey harbours on the south coast, at a time when war with France, and possible invasion, was a real threat. The survey was allowed only 2 months for 18 harbours, and involved Captain Thomas Wiltshaw of the navy and Captains Conaway and Cruft of Trinity House. Given this short time the surveying was understandably sketchy. Nine copies of the report were made:- 3 are known in the British Museum - Sloane MS3233 3 in the National Maritime Museum 1 in the Royal Geographical Society 1 in Hampshire CC Museums Service (HMCMS) A separate plan of Portsmouth and Southampton Water made by Edmund Dummer, 1698, not included in this survey, is in the British Museum, King's MS 43 fol.89. Facing the title page of the HMCMS copy of the report is a bookplate, a coat of arms and crest with motto:- DEO DUCENTE and the engravers mark:- [Exdriel] Sculpt. Below the bookplate an owner has pasted a slip cut from a sale catalogue. The book was lot 824 and assessed as:- ... very neatly drawn, an official manuscript. In the transcriptions some freedom has been taken with the layout where strict line-by-line transcription (with space slash space, / , to denote newline) would make a nonsense. Note that the letters in the tables of particulars refer to letters in the charts.

Object type: map

Last import: October 9, 2017