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Abstract
Children in Georgian and Victorian times were expected to be familiar with the geography of England and Wales. This study analyses some of the resources then available which taught children this information. John Aikin’s England Delineated is evaluated as a geographical text and then compared with less formal games and puzzles, then on the market, which were also designed to teach the geography of these countries. Three further textbooks, which adopted contrasting approaches to teaching children the geography of England and Wales, are then also analysed and compared with Aikin’s approach. The study found that different resources associated towns and cities with different features, some by their notable products, others by their historic buildings, or their connection to historic events. Where places were defined by product, however, there was a high degree of consistency between product and place across the resources. Some resources describe places objectively, others subjectively. Of the resources analysed, England Delineated was considered the most geographical in content and in approach to that content. Games and puzzles were found to be valuable in complementing the Aikin text. Suggestions for future research are made in the conclusions.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Martin Killeen, Cadbury Research Library, Special Collections Academic Services at the University of Birmingham for help in obtaining the image for Figure taken from John Aiken, England Delineated, or a Geographical Description of Every County in England and Wales with a Concise Account of its Most Important Products Natural and Artificial for the Use of Young Persons (London: Johnson, 1788).
Notes
1 Richard Gadesby, New and Easy Introduction to Geography by Way of Question and Answer Divided into Lessons (London: Bladon, 1776), 39.
2 Ibid., Preface, iii.
3 Paul Elliot and Stephen Daniels, “‘No Study So Agreeable to the Youthful Mind’: Geographical Education in the Georgian Grammar School,” History of Education 39, no. 1 (2010): 20–1.
4 J.H. Plumb, “The New World of Children in Eighteenth-Century England,” Past and Present 67 (1975): 87.
5 John Aikin, England Delineated, or a Geographical Description of Every County in England and Wales with a Concise Account of its Most Important Products Natural and Artificial for the Use of Young Persons (London: Johnson, 1788).
6 John Aikin, A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles Around Manchester (London: Stockdale, 1795).
7 Ibid., Preface, iii.
8 Robert Morden, The Description and State of England, Containing the Maps of the Counties of England and Wales (London: Morden, 1701), 57.
9 Ibid., 46.
10 William Guthrie, Geographical, Historical and Commercial Grammar (London: Knox, 1770).
11 J. Cowley, A Geography of England: Done in the Manner of Gordon’s Geographical Grammar (London: Dodsley, 1744).
12 Aikin, England Delineated, Preface, vi.
13 See, for example, Nathaniel Spencer, The Complete English Traveller: Or a New Survey and Description of England and Wales (London: Cooke, 1772); Stephen Whateley, England’s Gazetteer or an Accurate Description of All the Cities Towns Villages of the Kingdom, vols 1–111 (London: Knapton, Browne, Millar, Winston, White, 1750–1); Philip Luckombe, The Beauties of England, or a Comprehensive View of the Chief Villages, Market Towns and Cities (London: Davis and Reymers, 1767); Thomas Pennant, “First Tour of Scotland by Thomas Pennant Performed in 1769,” in The British Tourists: Or Travellers’ Pocket Companion Through England, Wales, vol. 2, ed. William Mavor (London: Gillet, 1814).
14 Anon, A Description of England and Wales Containing a Particular Account of Each County with its Climate, Rivers, Lakes, Soils, Agriculture, Cities, Owns Seats, Manufactures, Trades, vols 1–10 (London: Newberry and Carnan, 1769), vol. 8, 194, 259.
15 Emanuel and Thomas Bowen, Bowles’s New Medium Atlas or a Complete Set of Maps of the Counties of England (London: Carrington Bowes, 1785).
16 John Gibson, New Accurate Maps of Counties of England and Wales (London: Carnan, 1759).
17 John Luffman, A New Pocket Atlas and Geography of England and Wales (London: Lackington Allen, 1806).
18 Luffman, A New Pocket Atlas, Cheshire.
19 Aikin, England Delineated, 217.
20 Stephen Daniels and Paul Elliot, “‘Outline of Maps of Knowledge’: John Aikin’s Geographical Imagination,” in Religious Dissent and the Aikin Barbauld Circle 1740–1860, ed. F. James and I. Inkster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
21 Aikin, England Delineated, 101.
22 Ibid., Preface, vii.
23 Ibid., 145.
24 Ian Ousby, The Englishman’s England: Taste Travel and the Rise of Tourism (London: Pimlico, 2002).
25 Rev. Stebbing Shaw, “Tour of the West of England in 1778 by Rev. Stebbing Shaw,” in The British Tourists: Or Travellers’ Pocket Companion Through England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland Comprehending the Most Recent Celebrated Tours of the British Isles, vol. 3, ed. William Mavor (London: Gillet, 1814), 145, 180.
26 John Aikin, England Described Being a Concise Delineation of Each County in England and Wales, with an Account of its Most Important Products, Notices of Principal Seats (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1818).
27 Aikin, England Delineated, 210.
28 Ibid., 79.
29 Ibid., 93, 228.
30 Cowley, A Geography of England, 96, 173.
31 Aikin, England Delineated, 101.
32 Ibid., 364.
33 Ibid., 391, 395.
34 Ibid., 160.
35 Ibid., 82.
36 Ibid., 83.
37 Peter Borsay, “Heath and Leisure Resorts 1700–1840,” in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 2, ed. P. Clark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 780.
38 Aikin, England Delineated, 205, 206.
39 Ibid., 118, 101.
40 Ibid., 137.
41 Dustin Griffin, Patriotism and Poetry in Eighteenth Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 181, 198; Aikin, England Delineated, frontispiece.
42 Aikin, England Delineated, 12, 245.
43 Ibid., 170.
44 Ibid., 291.
45 Ibid., Preface, viii.
46 Ibid., 70, 135, 293, 201.
47 Cowley, A Geography of England, 260; Morden, The Description and State of England, 198.
48 Edward Wallis, The Geography of England and Wales Accurately Delineated (London: Wallis, 1799).
49 Aikin, England Delineated, 336–7.
50 Ibid., 248.
51 Morden, The Description and State of England, 145.
52 John Locke, Some Thoughts on Education (London: Churchill, 1693).
53 Robert Mayhew, “The Character of English Geography c1660–1800: A Textual Approach,” Journal of Historical Geography 24, no. 4 (1998): 385–412.
54 Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Practical Education, 2 vols (London: Johnson, 1798).
55 Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Essays on Practical Education, vol. 2 (London: Hunter, 1815), 50 (commenting on Abbé Gaultier).
56 Abbé A. Gaultier, A Complete Course of Geography, by Means of Instructive Games, 7th ed. (London: Harris, 1811).
57 John Wallis, Wallis’s Tour Through England and Wales, a New Geographical Pastime (London: Wallis, 1794).
58 Carington Bowles, Bowles’s British Geographical Amusement or Game of Geography, in a Most Compleat and Elegant Tour Thro’ England and Wales, and Adjoining Parts of Scotland and Ireland (London: Carington Bowles, 1780).
59 Aikin, England Delineated, 206.
60 Martin Norgate, “Cutting Borders: Dissected Maps and the Origins of the Jigsaw Puzzle,” The Cartographical Journal 44, no. 4 (2007): 342–50.
61 J. Spilsbury, England and Wales Divided into their Counties (London: Spilsbury, 1767); Linda Hannas, The English Jigsaw Puzzle 1760 to 1890 (London: Wayland, 1972), 60.
62 Samuel Clarke, Reuben Ramble’s Travels Through the Counties of England with Maps and Historical Vignettes (London: Darton, 1835–45).
63 Samuel Clarke, The World and its Inhabitants, or the Travels and Adventures of Reuben Ramble (London: Darton, c. 1840).
64 Ibid., Preface, juvenile audience.
65 Ibid., Plymouth breakwater, no page.
66 Ibid., Cambridge, Birmingham, Colchester, Southampton, no page numbers.
67 Ibid., Preface.
68 Ibid., no page number.
69 Robert Miller, Millar’s New Miniature Atlas, Containing a Complete Set of County Maps (London: Millar, 1821).
70 Priscilla Wakefield, A Family Tour Through the British Empire, Containing Some Account of its Manufactures, Natural and Artificial Curiosities Particularly Adapted to the Amusement and Instruction of Youth, 8th ed. (London: Darton, Harvey and Darton, 1808).
71 Priscilla Wakefield, Juvenile Travellers: Containing the Remarks of a Family During a Tour Through the Principal States and Kingdoms of Europe: With an Account of their Inhabitants, Natural Productions and Curiosities (London: Darton and Harvey, 1806).
72 Wakefield A Family Tour, ‘3. Every Gentlemen’.
73 See Richard Joseph Sullivan, “Tour Through Different Parts of England, Scotland and Wales by Richard Joseph Sullivan Esq. Performed in 1778,” in Mavor, ed. The British Tourists, vol. 3 (London: Gillet, 1814).
74 Wakefield, A Family Tour, 416, 400.
75 Ibid., 36, 400.
76 Sullivan, “Tour Through Different Parts of England,” 79.
77 Wakefield, A Family Tour, 289, 342.
78 Ibid., 310.
79 Ibid., 1.
80 Ibid., 110, 401.
81 Ibid., 444, 28, 100.
82 Ibid., 439, 83.
83 Ibid., 316.
84 Ibid., 75.
85 Ibid., 79.
86 H.J. Blease, A System of British Geography for the Use of Schools (London: Darton, Harvey and Darton, 1820).
87 Ibid., 19, 23.
88 Ibid., 52.
89 Ibid., 94.
90 Ibid., 231, 210.
91 Penelope Corfield, The Impact of English Towns 1700–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 60, reference to decline of Hotwells; Edward Wallis, Picturesque Round Game of the Produce and Manufactures of the Counties of England and Wales (London: Wallis and then Passmore c. 1845), mention of Hotwells.
92 J. Goldsmith, A Grammar of General Geography for the Use of Schools and Young Persons (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1835), 39.
93 John Wallis, Wallis’s Tour of Europe: A New Geographical Pastime (London: Wallis, 1794); Thomas Jefferys, The Royal Geographical Pastime, or the Complete Tour of Europe (London: Jefferys, 1768).