John Arrowsmith (cartographer)


John Arrowsmith was born at Winston, County Durham England. He was the nephew of Aaron Arrowsmith, the English cartographer.
In 1810 he joined his uncle in the cartography business. After his uncle died in 1823, the family firm was carried on by his sons Aaron and Samuel Arrowsmith, and John began working on his own. The Arrowsmith's were founding members of the Geographical Society of London in 1830. The junior Aaron left the family firm in 1832, and upon the death of Samuel in 1839, John merged it into his own successful business. In 1863 he received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, which was what the Geographical Society of London was known after gaining the patronage of King William IV.
Arrowsmith spent the years after his uncle's death preparing maps for his iconic London Atlas of Universal Geography, the first edition of which was published in 1834 with 50 maps. He published subsequent editions, adding and removing maps until there were 72 plates in one late edition. The atlas continued to be published after his death, the rights to publish the maps being acquired by Edward Stanford in 1874.
Mount Arrowsmith, situated east of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is named for John Arrowsmith and his uncle Aaron Arrowsmith. The Arrowsmith River in Western Australia was named by Sir George Grey after Arrowsmith, who later produced the maps for the published journals of Grey's two Western Australian expeditions.

Maps of John Arrowsmith

1821–1832

John and his uncle built on Aaron's A map exhibiting all the new discoveries in the interior parts of North America 1811 version which was heavily based on information provided by the Hudson's Bay Company, Indian maps, and British Navy sea charts to produce and publish an updated map: North America in 1821. John spent the next ten years drawing and engraving 40 maps that he published in 1832 and that were eventually included in the 1834 atlas. The Map of British North America also heavily dependent upon information from the Hudson's Bay Company, was sold under its own cover, but it's unclear if the others were sold prior to publication of the 1834 atlas.
The 40 maps include the following :
In addition to the maps published in 1832 in the above list, the 1835 atlas included the following :
Map with 1833 date:
1834 Maps
The first 1838 edition of the Atlas has the same maps as the 1835 edition, except for these maps that had been updated:
Later 1838 editions of the atlas than the one in the Rumsey collection replaced the following maps:
with
and added the following maps:
The 1840 edition of the Atlas had the same 54 maps as the 1838 edition, with the addition of the following maps:
The 1844 edition of the Atlas had 58 maps of the 1840 edition, excluding the following:
with the addition of the following maps: