12. Map of the River Thames for Josh Mawman

12. Title: A Map of the Port of London and the River Thames from London Bridge to Sheerness. (above top border) with Engraved for the Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames. Published May 1800. (below title).
Date: 1800.
Size: 213 x 560 mm.
Imprint(s): Published by Josh Mawman, successor to Mr Dilly in the Poultry, London.
Signature(s): Engraved by John Cooke. 50 Howland St.: 
Location(s): LUL, DEI[1].

  


Comments: Engraved for the Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames by Patrick Colquhoun, LL.D. published May, 1800. Copies can be found at almost all major British national and university libraries and at least 3 copies are available on-line.[2]
The London merchants trading with the West Indies at the time were losing a great deal of revenue to theft and corruption and the government losing important customs duties. Patrick Colquhoun (1745-1820), the metropolitan police magistrate, at that time had already published his Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in 1795, and was asked to study the problem largely by the merchants themselves. This treatise containing an historical view of the trade of the port of London: and suggesting means for preventing the depredations thereon, by a legislative system of River Police suggested a number of solutions the main one being the establishment of a river police. The benefits which Colquhoun's exertions brought to the West India planters led the colonies of St. Vincent, Nevis, Dominica, and the Virgin Islands to appoint him their agent in England. [DNB]
 


[1] Although DEI has a copy, the map has been trimmed close to border and the Cooke signature lost. Senate House Special Collections [G.L.] copy is 18053 1800. Facsimile reprints by Patterson Smith of New Jersey (1969) and by ECCO Print Editions (2017). The National Library of the Netherlands copy is freely available to read or as pdf  on Google Books (no map).

[2] The German publisher, Baumgärtner of Leipzig, issued a translation in 1800 (without map): Ueber Londons Polizey besonders in Bezug auf Verbesserungen und Verhütungsmittel der Verbrechen von P. Colquhun.




Link to Map 13.


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