Mapping Manchester - University of Manchester

The map makers
The story of the people behind map production is told here by contrasting an
historical example of commercial cartography, alongside a contemporary
equivalent.
The first large-scale mapping of Manchester was carried out by William Green, who surveyed the city
towards the end of the 1780s. At this date map-making was an expensive and risky enterprise. It
involved laborious surveying followed by the engraving of copper plates. Maps were printed from
these and sold to a limited, wealthy, audience. Cartographers used whatever information they could
acquire, sometimes through the wholesale copying of other people’s maps and surveys. Commercial
success for map-makers often depended less on accuracy and currency than on getting the map out to
the market first.
Charles Laurent managed to get access to Green’s survey, and issued a smaller scale map of Manchester
before Green was able to publish his large-scale map. Yet in many respects Laurent’s map can be
regarded as an inferior design, albeit a more successful publication.
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