Description:This Plan of Birmingham, was surveyed by Thomas Hanson and sculpted (engraved) by R. Hancock in 1781. The scale was reduced to nine inches to the mile with the loss of much detail. This map was used in the first edition of William Hutton’s History of Birmingham, published in 1782.
Plan of Birmingham Thomas Hanson 1781 MAP/174790
This version of the Plan of Birmingham was used in the first edition [1782] and in some copies of the second edition [1783] of William Hutton's History of Birmingham.
The map was ‘Survey’d by Thos Hanson’ in 1781 and engraved by ‘R. Hancock Sculpt ‘.
Thomas Hanson, land surveyor, of 5, Bath Row died at his home on 22 September, 1796, aged 62, his burial at Edgbaston parish church is marked by a memorial tablet on the outside of the South wall.
The map is aligned with north [more accurately 20 east of north) at the top of the map which covers an area 2.35 kilometres by 1.70 kilometres centred on the north-west side of Cannon Street between Cherry Street and New Cannon Passage.
The need to reduce the physical size of this map in order to fit it as an insert into a book meant that the scale had to be reduced from 25 inches to the mile for his 1778 Plan and subsequent revision survey, to 9 inches to the mile for this 1781 version. In order to achieve this, detail was lost and individual building plots and buildings were merged into blocks. The scale reduction was probably achieved using a pantograph. In addition, the coverage at the bottom of the map has been reduced by 120 metres when compared with the 1778 map.
The smaller scale of the map meant that some geographical features were omitted and many of the established smaller streets and passageways, buildings and geographical features were not labelled. In contrast some of the newer streets are named for the first time. Those new buildings shown on the manuscript revision survey are included.
A text box in the top right hand corner of the map states
The Town of Birmingham Is distant from London 116 Miles. contains: 8000 houses; 50,000 inhabitants; 2 Parish churches; 3 Chapels; 1 Chapel in Deretend; Several meeting houses for dissenters of all Denominations; Large Markets in most days in ye week; a Canal which communicates with most of ye others in England.
Catalogue of British Town Maps: 19375
A modified version of the Plan was used in later releases of William Hutton’s second edition of his History of Birmingham, first published in 1783. The 1976 reprint of the 1783 edition of William Hutton's History of Birmingham carries the following note in the foreword
'The title and the decoration on the descriptive text varies slightly In some copies of the 1783 edition [of Hutton's An History of Birmingham] from the original The Town of Birmingham to The noted Town of Birmingham and it is this second version of the map which has been reproduced in this reprint'
[Elrington, Christopher E, E.P. Publishing 1976].