‘North Sea or German Ocean’? The Anglo-German Cartographic Freemasonry, 1842–1914

ABSTRACT

From 1842, British and German commercial cartographers established a profitable relationship based on mutual cooperation and the exchange of expertise. The links between the mapmakers of Edinburgh and Gotha, so strong that they amounted to a form of ‘freemasonry’, underpinned the production of many of the key British atlases of the period. The relationship fitted broader patterns of Anglo-German cultural affinity that were broken only by the outbreak of the First World War, after which cartography ceased to be a means for international cooperation and became instead a tool of nationalist politics and a weapon of war. The war occasioned significant changes in the way Germany was represented on British maps. Long-standing notions of ethnic and cultural affinity were replaced by demonstrations of Germany's ‘otherness’. In this article, I explore the key personal and professional relationships that sustained this cartographic ‘freemasonry’ (in politically favourable and unfavourable times) and the adjustments cartographers made to some of the maps as political circumstances changed.

À partir de 1842, les cartographes privés anglais et allemands établirent une relation fructueuse, fondée sur la coopération mutuelle et l'échange d'expertise. Les liens entre les cartographes d'Edimbourg et de Gotha, si étroits qu'ils équivalaient à une forme de ‘franc-maçonnerie’, étayèrent la production de nombreux atlas anglais essentiels de la période. La relation se modelait sur le schéma plus large des affinités culturelles entre Anglais et Allemands, qui ne furent rompues que par le déclenchement de la première guerre mondiale, à la suite de laquelle la cartographie cessa d'être un moyen de coopération internationale et devint au contraire un instrument du nationalisme politique et une arme de guerre. La guerre suscita d'importants changements dans la manière dont l'Allemagne était représentée sur les cartes anglaises. Les anciennes notions d'affinité ethnique ou culturelle furent remplacées par des démonstrations de l'‘altérité’ de l'Allemagne. Dans cet article, j'explore les relations personnelles et professionnelles principales qui soutenaient cette ‘franc-maçonnerie’ cartographique (dans les périodes politiquement favorables et défavorables) et les modifications apportées par les cartographes à certaines cartes tandis que le contexte politique se modifiait.

Britische und deutsche kommerziell tätige Kartographen bauten ab 1842 eine profitable Zusammenarbeit auf, die sich auf wechselseitiger Zusammenarbeit und den Austausch von Fachwissen gründete. Die Verbindungen zwischen den Kartenherstellern in Edinburgh und Gotha waren so stark, dass sie an eine ‘Bruderschaft’ erinnerten und wesentlich für die Produktion vieler ‘Meilensteine’ britischer Atlaskartographie dieser Zeit wurden. Diese Beziehungen waren eingebettet in ein allgemeines Netz kulturellen Austauschs zwischen England und Deutschland, das erst mit dem Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkriegs zerriß. Danach war die Kartographie keine Plattform internationaler Kooperation mehr, sondern wurde zu einem Mittel nationalistischer Politik und zu einer Waffe im Krieg. Der militärische Konflikt bewirkte deutliche Veränderungen in der Darstellung Deutschlands auf britischen Karten. Langjährige Vermittlung von ethnischer und kultureller Nähe wurde durch die Darstellung der deutschen ‘Andersartigkeit’ ersetzt. In diesem Beitrag wird den zentralen personellen und professionellen Beziehungen, die diese kartographische ‘Bruderschaft’ in politisch günstigen und ungünstigen Zeiten trug, nachgegangen, aber auch den Anpassungen, welche die Kartographen an einigen der Karten vornahmen, sobald sich die politischen Verhältnisse wandelten.

Desde 1842, los cartógrafos comerciales británicos y alemanes establecieron una provechosa relación basada en la mutua cooperación y en el intercambio de conocimientos. Los lazos entre los cartógrafos de Edimburgo y Gotha, tan fuertes que llegaron a formar una ‘francmasonería’, apuntalaron la producción de muchos de los atlas británicos claves del periodo. La relación se ajustaba a las más amplias pautas de afinidad cultural anglo-alemana que solamente se rompieron al estallido de la Primera Guerra Mundial, después de la cual la cartografía dejó de ser un medio para la cooperación internacional y en su lugar se convirtió en instrumento de nacionalismo político y en un arma de guerra. La guerra ocasionó cambios significativos en la forma en que Alemania fue representada en los mapas británicos. Las anteriores ideas sobre afinidades étnicas y culturales fueron reemplazadas por demostraciones de ‘diferenciación’ alemana. En este artículo, exploro la clave personal y la relación profesional que sostenía esta cartografía ‘francmasona’ en tiempos políticos favorables y desfavorables, y los ajustes cartográficos hechos a algunos mapas cuando las circunstancias políticas cambiaron.

KEYWORDS:

• Britain
• Germany
• nineteenth-century
• cartography
• map publishing
• Anglo-German relations
• John Bartholomew
• Justus Perthes
• Times Atlas
• Cassell & Co

Acknowledgements

A version of this article was presented to the 23rd International Conference on the History of Cartography, 12–17 July 2009, in Copenhagen. The author would like to thank those attending for their interest in, and constructive comments on, the research behind it. Also, special thanks must go to Diana Webster (former Map Collections Manager, National Library of Scotland) whose own research interest intersects with mine, and who provided many valuable pieces of ‘inside’ information with which to construct this article. Thanks also to Christopher Fleet and all at the Map Library, National Library of Scotland, and to those who read and commented on earlier versions of this article, including Michael Hau, Alistair Thompson and Barbara Caine at the School of Historical Studies, Monash University, and Jane Caplan at St Anthony's College, University of Oxford.

Notes

Notes and References

1. Michael Heffernan, ‘The politics of the map in the early twentieth century’, Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29:3 (July 2002): 207–26; Alistair W. Pearson, D. R. Fraser Taylor, Karen D. Kline and Michael Heffernan, ‘Cartographic ideals and geopolitical realities: international maps of the world from the 1890s to the present’, Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien 50:2 (2006): 149–76; Alastair W. Pearson and Michael Heffernan, ‘The American Geographical Society's Map of Hispanic America: million scale mapping between the wars’, Imago Mundi 61:2 (2009): 215–43.

2. Heffernan, ‘The politics of the map’ (see note 1), 210.

3. Ibid., 210–13.

4. Ibid., 208.

5. This is the picture presented in Jürgen Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet: A Guide to German Hand-Atlases and Their Siblings throughout the World, 1800–1950, Volume 1: The Great Handatlases, ed. G. R. Crossman (Schwerte, Pangaea Verlag, 2003), 610; and in Simon Nowell-Smith, The House of Cassell (London, Cassell, 1958), 167–68. The issue is ignored or treated in rather throwaway fashion by the more recent publicity for newer editions of The Times Atlas: Sheena Barclay, ‘Publishing the world: perspectives on The Times Atlas’, Scottish Geographical Journal 120: 1–2 (2004): 19–31; Sarah Hepworth, ‘The Times Atlas’, 25 February 2002, at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2162-218852,00.html (accessed 8 November, 2004, but the link is no longer active). Less judgemental is David Smith, ‘Cassell and Company, 1848–c.1890’, Journal of the International Map Collectors Society 70 (Autumn 1997): 7–17.

6. A concise history of the Justus Perthes firm (in German) is available online at the firm's website: ‘Justus Perthes: Kurzer Abriss der Verlagsgeschichte 1785 bis 2005’, http://www.perthes.de/geschichte_justus_perthes/ (accessed 12 May, 2009).

7. The term ‘Anglo-German’ is of course inadequate to describe what was a British, rather than an exclusively English, interaction with Germany. The pivotal role played by Scots cartographers in this relationship should also not be overstated to the exclusion of other British (but not Scottish) firms. That many of the firms described here had offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and other cities of the United Kingdom illustrates well the British dimension of the freemasonry. John George Bartholomew's own recognition of a ‘British’ (as distinct from Scots, or English) tradition of cartography also serves to highlight the truly transnational nature of this collaboration (see notes 29–31 below).

8. Leslie Gardiner, Bartholomew—150 Years (Edinburgh, John Bartholomew, 1976), 60.

9. The classic study of this period is Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism: 1860–1914 (London, Allen & Unwin, 1980). Recent work modifying Kennedy's analysis includes John Ramsden's popular history, Don't Mention the War: The British and the Germans since 1890 (London, Little, Brown, 2006); and most significantly Dominik Geppert and Robert Gerwarth, eds, Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain: Essays on Cultural Affinity (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).

10. Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet ‘(see note 5), 384.

11. The Royal Geographical Society was enthusiastic in its praise for the newly established partnership. See the review of The National Atlas, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 13 (1843): 156–60. Also see Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (note 5), 384.

12. William and Alexander Keith Johnston, The Physical Atlas (Edinburgh, William Blackwood & Sons, 1848). See Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (note 5), 384.

13. Jan Smits, Petermann's Maps: Carto-Bibliography of the Maps in Petermann's ‘Geographische Mitteilungen’, 1855–1945 (’t Goy-Houten, HES & De Graaf, 2004), 37; Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (see note 5), 384.

14. George Bartholomew, Letter to John Bartholomew junior, 2 December, 1853, National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS), Acc. 10222, No. 12. John Bartholomew had been with Petermann for around eight months by the time this letter was written. See also Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 18.

15. George Bartholomew, Letter to John Bartholomew junior, 2 December, 1853. See also Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 18.

16. August Petermann, Letter to A. Fullarton, [c.1854], NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12. Petermann's correspondence is in English. There is some uncertainty over the identity of Fullerton. It is possible that he is the same person as Archibald Fullarton known to have been an atlas publisher in Edinburgh around the same period. That this confusion exists is an indication of the amount of work that remains to be done to gain a full appreciation of cartography and publishing in this period.

17. George Bartholomew, Letter to John Bartholomew junior, 28 February, 1854, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12; Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 18.

18. August Petermann, Letter to John Bartholomew junior, 12 August 1854, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12. George Bartholomew, Letter to John Bartholomew junior, 2 May 1854, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12. Also see Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 18.

19. August Petermann, Letters to John Bartholomew junior, 18 October, 1858; 15 December, 1858; 24 March, 1860, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12.

20. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 39. Page 39 also has a photograph of the Board Room of Bartholomew & Son, c.1976, showing the bust of Petermann, partially obscured. The last communication, a short postcard, from Petermann to John Bartholomew arrived a month before the German's suicide; it expressed eagerness to re-establish face-to-face contact during the Scotsman's proposed visit to Gotha with his wife later that year. August Petermann, Postcard to John Bartholomew, 28 August, 1878, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12.

21. Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Letter to John Bartholomew, 6 October, 1855, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12; Ernst Georg Ravenstein, 30 June, 1905, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 88.

22. August Petermann, Letter to John Bartholomew, 17 January 1859, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12.

23. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 45.

24. Ibid., 45. Many of these copper plates survive in the Bartholomew Archive at the National Library of Scotland and present a fascinating physical memorial to Anglo-German freemasonry. The plates bear some titles and legends in German, some in English (with thanks to Diana Webster for locating and making me aware of these uncatalogued items), NLS Acc. 10222.

25. Correspondence between an unnamed Justus Perthes official and John George Bartholomew, 29 May, 1891 to 13 January, 1892, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 87. The canny Scot in Bartholomew seems to have enabled him to acquire the plates at less than a quarter of the original asking price (see Justus Perthes, Letter to J. G. Bartholomew, 5 June, 1891; Justus Perthes, Letter to J. G. Bartholomew, 15 August, 1891, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 87).

26. John Blackie, Correspondence with John Bartholomew, 15 April, 18 April, 19 April, 5 May, 1870, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 12. For more information on Blackie & Son, see: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/blackie.html (accessed 11 May 2009). See Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 18, 106, 110–11.

27. For example, the Reduced Ordnance Surveys of Scotland, 1875–1886; see http://www.cartography.org.uk/downloads/MCT_BartsMaps.pdf (accessed 11 May, 2009).

28. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 45.

29. ‘Map’, in The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (London, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911), 17: 629–63 at 649 (available online at: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Map, accessed 15 November, 2007); Wolfgang Lierz, ‘Karten aus Stielers Hand-Atlas in der Encyclopædia Britannica’, Cartographica Helvetica, 29 (2004), 27–34 (with thanks to Wolfgang Lierz for making me aware of this use of German maps).

30. Examples include Fullerton's Hand-Atlas of the World (Edinburgh, John Bartholomew, 1870–1872); Constable's Hand-Atlas of India (London, Archibald Constable & Co, 1893); Nelson Universal Hand-Atlas (London, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1913). The original German phrase Handatlas refers to not the ‘handy’ size of a volume, but to its content. In the case of a German Handbuch (Handbook), the reference is to ‘the most essential’ information or ‘a concentration of essential information’, thus a Handatlas is a convenient concentration of the most essential geographical information, rather than simply a physically convenient reference work. See, for instance, Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (note 5), 16.

31. John George Bartholomew, MS of an article on ‘British and German Cartography’, c.1901 (NLS Acc. 10222, No. 138). This was eventually published as ‘The philosophy of map-making and the evolution of a great German atlas’, Scottish Geographical Magazine 18 (1902): 34–39.

32. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 45.

33. I can find no substantiating evidence for the claim that the British cartographic establishment ‘reacted with great anger at the publication of a German atlas in England’; nor for a supposed irate letter to The Times regarding their publication from William Johnston of W. & A. K. Johnston & Co., the firm which actually inaugurated the Anglo-German cartographic freemasonry. See Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (note 5), 610. However it does seem that in the construction of The Times Atlas (successor to The Universal Atlas), which otherwise proudly proclaimed its use of a superior German original, the editors took the trouble to have ‘Printed in Leipzig’ excised from the maps. See also John Christopher Bartholomew, ‘The History of the Times Atlas’ (unpublished text of a paper presented to the 36 Annual Symposium of the British Cartographic Society, Department of Geography and Topographic Science, University of Glasgow, 10 September 1999), 2 (with thanks to the late John Christopher Bartholomew, Ken Atherton of the British Cartographic Society, and Michael Ashworth, HarperCollins Publishers, for making this paper available to me in 2006–2007).

34. The Times, 6 February, 1891, 10.

35. ‘The Universal Atlas’, The Times, 11 July, 1893, 13. This review also drew attention to a preponderance of maps relating to Germany, but decided this should be ‘hardly deemed a fault’, given the importance of ‘that empire’.

36. Nowell-Smith, The House of Cassell (see note 5), 167–68.

37. The History of The Times, Volume III—The Twentieth Century Test: 1884–1912 (London, The Times, 1947), 443–45; Smith, ‘Cassell and Company’ (see note 5), 11.

38. Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (see note 5), 610.

39. Advertisement in The Times, 8 April 1895, 12.

40. For the background on racial theory, see Maike Oergel, ‘The redeeming Teuton: nineteenth century notions of the “Germanic” in England and Germany’, in Imagining Nations, ed. Geoffrey Cubitt (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998), 75–91. A useful contemporary source for such feelings can be found in J. B. Bury, ed., The Historical Geography of Europe (London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1903), 554.

41. R. McCrum, W. Cran and R. MacNeil, The Story of English: New and Revised Edition (London, Faber and Faber, 1992), 53–72. According to P. E. Firchow, The Death of the German Cousin: Variations on a Literary Stereotype, 1890–1920 (London, Associated University Press, 1986), 32, the Anglo-Saxons came from ‘somewhere in the bogs of Schleswig-Holstein’.

42. Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake—‘Last of the English’ (London, Macmillan & Co., 1866), 1:206–7.

43. E. A. Freeman, ‘The English constitution’, excerpt, in The Nineteenth-Century Constitution, 1815–1914, ed. H. J. Hanham (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969), 19–20; C. J. W. Parker, ‘The failure of liberal racialism: the racial ideas of E. A. Freeman’, Historical Journal 24 (1981): 825–46.

44. A useful study is Keith Robbins, Protestant Germany through British Eyes: A Complex Victorian Encounter (London, German Historical Institute, 1993). The quotation is from Mrs Humphrey Ward, Robert Elsmere (London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1888), 2: 20.

45. Further investigation of the printing records may establish whether such choices were made consciously.

46. Advertisement for The Universal Atlas, The Times, 11 July 1893, 13.

47. The Universal Atlas (London, Atlas Publishing Company, 1893), Map 24; The Times Atlas (London, The Times, 1895), Map 24.

48. The Universal Atlas (see note 47), Map 24; The Times Atlas (see note 47), Map 24. For the original German, see Richard Andree, Richard Andree's Allgemeiner Handatlas (Bielefeld, Velhagen & Klasing, 1881), Map 13). The title varies from edition to edition. That the maps are of German origin is apparent from the listing of different ‘Germans’ first in the maps’ keys.

49. Andree, Allgemeiner Handatlas (see note 48), Map 13.

50. The Universal Atlas (see note 47), Map 24; The Times Atlas (see note 47), Map 24.

51. The Universal Atlas (see note 47), Map 10; Times Atlas (see note 47), Map 10.

52. For the use of pink or red on maps of the British Empire, see Jeremy Black, Maps and History: Constructing Images of the Past (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997), 50; J. B. Harley, ‘Maps, knowledge, and power’, in The New Nature of Cartography, ed. Paul Laxton (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 58 (fig. 1) and 71.

53. See Espenhorst, Petermann's Planet (note 5), 610.

54. Ibid.

55. Dr Leander Starr Jameson's ill-advised invasion of the de facto independent South African Republic (or Transvaal—de jure a British protectorate) had prompted the Kaiser to offer his personal congratulations to the republic's president, Paul Kruger. This was regarded as an unacceptable interference in internal British affairs and met with a storm of protest in the popular press. See Kennedy, Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism (note 9), 220, 233–34.

56. Ibid., 239–42, 247–48. Also John C. G. Röhl, ‘“The worst of enemies”: Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Uncle Edward VII’, in Geppert and Gerwarth, Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain (see note 9), 41–66.

57. Philip's Handy Volume Atlas of the World, ed. Ernst Georg Ravenstein (London, George Philip & Son, 1895).

58. Ibid., Plate 1.

59. Ibid., notes to Plate 2.

60. Philip's Handy Volume Atlas of the World, ed. Ernst Georg Ravenstein (London, George Philip & Son, 1913), notes to Plate 2.

61. John George Bartholomew, A Literary and Historical Atlas of Europe (London, J. M. Dent & Sons, c.1910), Maps 6 and 7.

62. Keith Robbins, Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness (London, Longman, 1998), 228.

63. Paul Jordan, North Sea Saga (Bradford, Pearson Longman, 2004), 2, 126.

64. Leo Maxse, c.1910, cited in A. J. A. Morris, The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament, 1896–1914 (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), 227. Maxse's comment also extended in particular to criticism of England's position under the Liberal government (1905–1916). Maxse believed Britain to be ‘governed by Scotsmen [Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman], kicked by Irishmen [continued pressure over the Home Rule issue] and plundered by Welshmen [the rising influence of David Lloyd George]’. Erskine Childers's story of the German military build-up in the North Sea and the campaign for a British naval base on the east coast also provided the context for this switch away from ‘German Ocean’ as an acceptable alternative name. See Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1999), 80ff, which was first published in 1903.

65. For example, the change is evident in Bacon's Popular Atlas of the World (London, G. W. Bacon & Co., 1909), Maps 13 and 21; The Graphic Atlas of the World, ed. John George Bartholomew (London, John Walker & Co., 1910), Maps 10–11; Philip's New Handy General Atlas of the World, ed. George Philip (London, George Philip & Son, 1904), Map 18^A. The older name was used in Philip's Handy General Atlas of the World, ed. John Bartholomew (London, George Philip & Son, 1885), Map 7. A notable exception is The Reference Atlas of the World (Glasgow and Edinburgh, R. W. Forsyth Ltd, [1909]), Map 28. This was a repackaged version of The World-Wide Atlas of Modern Geography, 7th ed. (Edinburgh, W. & A. K. Johnston, 1909), Map 28, which continued to refer to a ‘German Ocean’. Also see Jordan, North Sea Saga (note 63), 126.

66. Jordan, North Sea Saga (see note 63), 2–3.

67. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 60. John George Bartholomew adopted the title ‘Edinburgh Geographical Institute’ in 1889 to reflect the firm's status as a research establishment. See John Christopher Bartholomew, ‘History of the Times Atlas’ (note 33), 3.

68. Bosse succeeded John George Bartholomew as the Honorary Map Curator of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1891 and held the post until he returned to Germany in 1902. See Kerr Jamieson, ‘Royal Scottish Geographical Society, past office bearers and staff—Hon. Map Curators’, at http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/rsgs/officebe/HonMapCu.htm, accessed 21 November 2007 (link no longer active).

69. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 60.

70. James Bain, who had joined Bartholomew as an apprentice before Bosse's arrival, recorded that Bosse was disliked for his attitude. See Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 60.

71. Friedrich Bosse, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 14 December, 1904; Friedrich Bosse, Memorandum to J. G. Bartholomew, 23 March, 1903, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 64. Heinz Bosse (1909–2001)—possibly a relation of Friedrich—produced what is still the only full-length, comprehensive guide to the now obsolete and increasingly forgotten 19th-century art of drawing, engraving and printing maps: H. Bosse, Kartentechnik, 2 vols. (Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1951).

72. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew [undated, c. September 1907]; Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 27 October 1907, Acc. 10222, No. 110. Franz Schrader (1844–1924) was a French geographer of German descent who produced numerous works of note, including a study of the structure and exploration of the Pyrenees. See ‘Obituary: Franz Schrader’ Geographical Review 15 (1925): 324.

73. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 45; Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 9 April 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

74. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 27 October 1907, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

75. Ian Bartholomew's accounts bring to mind Jerome K. Jerome's satirical Three Men on the Bummel (1900), written a few years previously as the sequel to his highly successful Three Men in a Boat.

76. The young man also complained that his enjoyment of Leipzig was somewhat soured by the ‘number of stupid regulations’, requiring cyclists to carry a licence and registration number, and the imposition of petty fines by local officials: Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 9 April 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

77. Ibid. Also see uncatalogued pieces by various apprentices completed under Friedrich Bosse, NLS Acc. 10222.

78. Ian Bartholomew, Letters to J. G Bartholomew, 6 December 1907, and undated but late December 1907, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110. One suspects that Ian's accounts of his activities to his father omit the more adolescent forms of entertainment indulged in by a young man of 17. Ian also seems to have regarded Oswald Winkel as a little over-enthusiastic regarding his connection with the Bartholomew firm and expressed exasperation that he did not know ‘exactly what [Winkel] has got in his head’ (Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 9 April, 1908, NLS Acc.10222, No. 110).

79. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, undated, but late December 1907, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

80. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 23 May 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

81. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, undated but late April 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110. Ian recorded Winkel's general scorn for theory and mathematics and his preference to concentrate on the real practicalities of cartography (Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 20 February 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110). Bartholomew eventually managed to attend lectures by a ‘Professor Friedrich’, dealing primarily with German explorations in Africa (Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 4 July 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110).

82. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 20 March 1908; Ian Bartholomew, ‘Christmas Greetings from Leipzig’, undated hand-drawn envelope, December, 1907, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

83. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 19 December 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110. Window space was of particular concern for mapmakers of the period, since the use of sunlight was the best method of tracing working copies of charts and preparing final versions.

84. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 20 March 1908, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

85. See Christopher Fleet and Charles J. W. Withers ‘Maps and map history using the Bartholomew Archive, National Library of Scotland’, in this volume of Imago Mundi 92–97.

86. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 20 March, 1908, NLS Acc.10222, No. 110.

87. See Pearson et al., ‘Cartographic ideals and geopolitical realities’ (note 1).

88. ‘Report of the Sixth International Geographical Congress, held in London, 1895’, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 28 (1896): 300.

89. Albrecht Penck, quoted in The Geographical Journal 44 (1914): 107. Interestingly, Penck also spoke of the unity of vision that by 1913 had come to exist ‘on both sides of the German Ocean’ (using the name of the North Sea then unfashionable because of its Germanic connotations).

90. D. W. Freshfield, ‘The new session, 1914–15’, Geographical Journal 44: 6 (Nov., 1914): 527.

91. Michael Heffernan, ‘Professor Penck's bluff: geography, espionage and hysteria in World War I’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 116 (2000): 267–82, at 271.

92. Ibid.

93. Heffernan, ‘Politics of the map’ (see note 1), 213; Pearson et. al., ‘Cartographic ideals and geopolitical realities’ (see note 1), 154.

94. Thomas Barker, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 10 September 1914, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 104. Barker had been employed by the Bartholomew family since 1878, and became a director in 1919. He eventually retired in 1933, having served three generations of Bartholomews over fifty-five years: Thomas Barker, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 25 December 1913, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 104; ‘Notice of Change of Firm’, 1 May 1919, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 105; Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 104.

95. Marie-Louise Barker, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 24 September 1914, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 104.

96. Thomas Barker, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 10 September 1914, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 104.

97. James Geikie, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 16 September 1914, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 71. The geologist's enthusiasm for German culture had led him to publish translations of many key German poets. See James Geikie, ed., Songs and Lyrics by Heinrich Heine and Other German Poets (Edinburgh, James Thin, 1887).

98. The academic commitment to the Great War in Britain and Germany has been the subject of many studies, most notably Roland Nelson Stromberg, Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, Regents Press of Kansas, 1982), esp. 3; and Stuart Wallace, War and the Image of Germany: British Academics 1914–1918 (Edinburgh, John Donald, 1988), esp. 124–66.

99. Douglas Freshfield, quoted in Michael Heffernan, ‘Geography, cartography and military intelligence: the Royal Geographical Society and the First World War’, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, NS 21 (1996): 504–33, at 508.

100. Heffernan, ‘Geography, cartography and military intelligence (see note 99), 509.

101. Ibid., 510–11.

102. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 43, 52. John George Bartholomew had been elevated to ‘Geographer to the King’ upon the accession of King George V in 1910.

103. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 52.

104. Ian Bartholomew's military service is nothing short of heroic. As a lieutenant, the young Scotsman was thrice mentioned in despatches in fighting before Ypres and awarded the Military Cross on 25 June, 1915 (the ribbons presented by the divisional general, the cross itself later by King George V). Refusing a ‘cushy’, or safe, position in the Map Section of one of the new armies, Ian continued to serve with the 1st Gordon Highlanders (he was promoted to staff captain in March, 1916), fighting in the Battle of the Somme until wounded in Delville Wood on 19 July. Tragically for the talented draughtsman, the wound was in his right hand, and it seemed initially that he might lose it. Recovering well, his penmanship in letters home nevertheless degenerated to a childlike scrawl as he struggled to use his left hand, before being given a typewriter in late August. On leave in England by October, he arranged to see a surgeon to attempt to restore movement to his damaged fingers. Thereafter, Ian returned to the Western Front to serve in the trenches at Passchendaele, before returning to head the family business at war's end. See the letters in NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

105. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 30 September 1914, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

106. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, [c. January 1916]; Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 17 March 1916, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 110.

107. Ian Bartholomew, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 5 October 1917; John George Bartholomew to Ian Bartholomew, 12 October 1917, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 199.

108. John George Bartholomew, Letter to Ian Bartholomew, 8 May 1918, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 199.

109. For Northcliffe's role in the ‘scaremongering’ and Germanophobia of the pre-war press, see Morris, The Scaremongers (note 64), esp. Ch. 1. A reassessment of Northcliffe appears in Dominik Geppert, ‘“The foul-visaged anti-Christ of journalism”? The popular press between warmongering and international cooperation’, in Geppert and Gerwarth, Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain (see note 9), 369–89.

110. Whether Bartholomew approached Northcliffe or vice versa is in some dispute. See John Christopher Bartholomew, ‘History of the Times Atlas’ (note 33), 3; Barclay, ‘Publishing the world’ (note 5), 22; Gardiner, Bartholomew (note 8), 53.

111. John George Bartholomew, Letter to Lord Northcliffe, 17 February 1915, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 104.

112. John Christopher Bartholomew, ‘History of the Times Atlas’ (see note 33), 4.

113. H. Corbett, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 15 February 1917; A. J. Sifton, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 4 November 1917, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 415; The Times, 9 December, 1919, 18. Bartholomew expressed some annoyance that Northcliffe's updated version of the Harmsworth Atlas (originally published 1908) might compete with the new Times Atlas and seems to have made an attempt to have publicity for the competitor volume scaled back. See H. Corbett, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 27 June 1919, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 105. The Daily Telegraph’s Victory Atlas of the World, ed. Alexander Gross (London, Geographia, 1919), was also seen as a potential threat: H. Corbett, Letter to John George Bartholomew, 3 July 1919, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 105.

114. Absolute certainty about the new German frontiers was not possible even by the time the final volume appeared in 1922: areas devoid of colour dominated those areas of Silesia still awaiting the outcome of League of Nations sponsored plebiscites. Other ethnographic maps, specifically those prepared by Emmanuel de Martonne, played an important role in the carving-up of Central Europe at Versailles, since Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George used them to decide the extent of the new frontiers. See Gilles Palsky, ‘Emmanuel de Martonne and the ethnographical cartography of central Europe (1917–1920)’, Imago Mundi 54 (2002): 111–19.

115. The Times Survey Atlas of the World, ed. John George Bartholomew (London, The Times, 1922), pl. 11.

116. C. G. Robertson and J. G. Bartholomew, An Historical Atlas of Modern Europe from 1789 to 1914 (London, Oxford University Press, 1915), Map 3.

117. Jordan, North Sea Saga (see note 63), 4.

118. W. R. Prior, Letter to J. G. Bartholomew, 12 January 1920, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 416. Prior was the author of North Sleswick under Prussian Rule, 1864–1914 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1914).

119. ‘A new map of Germany’, clipping from The Times, 18 February 1921 (NLS Acc. 10222, No. 416).

120. ‘New map of Germany completed’, clipping from The Times, 8 March 1921 (NLS Acc. 10222, No. 416).

121. The Times, 23 March, 1922, 20.

122. W. L. G. Joerg, ‘Post-war atlases: a review’, Geographical Review 13 (1923): 583–98, at 591.

123. N. N. Powzer, Letter to J. G. Bartholomew, 25 October 1919, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 416.

124. Ibid.

125. ‘E. A. R.’, ‘Three new British atlases’, Geographical Journal 55 (1920): 223.

126. Gardiner, Bartholomew (see note 8), 64.