Historic Map Collections
The Cartography Collection
The Cartography Collection consists of a selection of the maps and atlases deposited by the
Geography Department Map Library into Special Collections in 2005. The selection, made on the
basis of age, value and interest, includes the first edition of the Ordnance Survey 1" to the mile maps
of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset made in 1809-1811, four of Ogilby's linear road maps of the
Westcountry of c 1675, and a collection of "escape maps" printed on silk and given to military
personnel (mostly airmen) who were shot down or captured during the Second World War to help
them escape back to the United Kingdom. There is also a large collection of the 1" and 25" OS maps
of the British Isles, mostly from the earlier part of the 20th century.
The preponderance of early Ordnance Survey maps of the British Isles provides material for the
history of landscape and development over the last two centuries. The Second World War "escape
maps" are an unusual and very well preserved footnote to the history of the war.
The Constable Collection
Kenneth Maxwell Constable, MA, was born in 1888 and died in 1937 at the early age of 49. He was
educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read mathematics. He chose
engineering as his profession and went to McGill University, Montreal, and then joined Messrs.
Cammell Laird at Liverpool. In 1925 he came to Exeter to be the first Warden of Reed Hall; shortly
after this he was appointed Warden of Mardon Hall. He also took up the post of Lecturer in
Mathematics at the then University College of the South West. Among many interests listed in his
obituary was the collecting of old maps: the 94 maps of the Constable Collection are the results of
his efforts in this field. The collection is believed to have been donated to the University College of
the South West (The University of Exeter) on Mr Constable's death in 1937.
As with most antique map collections, the individual maps originally came from atlases, which were
split up, often fairly soon after publication, and the maps sold separately. Most of the Constable
maps (77 out of 94) cover the British Isles (general, regional, county). These include eighteen maps
of Devon, twenty-nine maps of Wales and its counties, and, perhaps surprisingly, five maps of
England's smallest county Rutland. The earliest map in the Constable Collection is an edition of
Ptolemy's Hibernia et Albion, published between 1510 and 1530.
The Townsend Collection
R.W.Townsend was a member of an old Exeter family who had been publishers and booksellers in
the city for many years. He had an interest in the development of Exeter and formed a small
collection, of nineteen old map, to illustrate this. The collection was given to the University of Exeter
in 1972.
As with the Constable Map collection, the individual maps originally came from atlases, which were
split up, often fairly soon after publication, and the maps sold separately. All of the Townsend maps
cover the British Isles (general, regional, county). The strength of the Townsend Collection is the nine
maps of Exeter tracing the development of the city from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.