Gerard Swarbrick: Put it on the Map

The evenings presentation was given by the widely known local Cartographer and long term member of the society. Mr Swarbrick brought with him three of his own local area maps showing details in a clearly discernible way.
The main theme of the evening however was to describe the publications by the great cartographers over the last 2400 years. Marco polo was an inspiration for many map makers and the Chinese were very advanced helped by the fact they had paper in the fifth century. Early makers included Eristophenes Toscannelli and Posidanus.
Maps were produced by the Romans from ad100 to ad 1500 scarcely any survive and many were destroyed in the great fire of Alexandria.
Mr Swarbrick described Columbus’s four attempts to discover America and his confusion between China Japan and the West Indies and outlined how he was dependent upon the Portugese Henry the Navigator and the Spanish Royals for finance.
Other early Cartographers include Blau (Dutch), Fran Moro (venetian) Ptolomey (Istanbul) and Gerard Mercator who acted on behalf of the Catholic Church the influence of which declined after the fifteenth century. Interesting slides of these gentleman’s perceptions of the shape of the world were shown
The development of navigational tools made geography much simpler eg the North Facing Compass and in 1776 John Harrison’s Marine Chronometer. Many maps were grossly inaccurate and just a few were quite correct. Originals of historic maps sell for very high prices eg a 1507 map of North America sold for 10,000,000 dollars.
Reference was made to the Mapa Mundi held at Hereford Cathedral Anglo Saxton maps Muslim circular maps and Saxtons 1577 map of Lancashire .also Speed’s map of Ormskirk
We now of course have satellite navigation but many people prefer the excitement and interest of a map.