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Description

Rare Set of Charts of the Atlantic Ocean by William Faden and Foss Dessiou, Master of the Royal Navy

Rare separately issued pair of sea charts of the Atlantic Ocean, illustratrating a number of important British Expeditions across the Atlantic in the years prior to the publication of the charts.

The Northern Chart shows the route taken by Lord Nelson in pursuit of the French and Spanish Fleets in 1805, which culminated in the Battle of Trafalgar. The northern chart notes that it was copied directly from Nelson's orginal manuscript map under Nelson's special direciton and offered to the public as a slight tribute of an Individual to His Lordship's Fame & Memory. The map shows the track of the HMS Victory to the West Indies and back to West Africa in 1805, and the Track of the Warley to the Coast of Africa and the Cape Verde Islands, in the same year. There is one manuscript note in red, illustrating a lighthouse off the coast of Cape St. Vincent in Portugal.

The Southern Chart shows the route of the Warly back and forth across the Southern Atlantic Ocean in 1805 and 1806.

The charts are quite rare on the market. This is the first time we have ever seen these charts offered as a pair with original slipcase.

Condition Description
Two charts in a single slip case with title, as issued.
William Faden Biography

William Faden (1749-1836) was the most prominent London mapmaker and publisher of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. His father, William Mackfaden, was a printer who dropped the first part of his last name due to the Jacobite rising of 1745. 

Apprenticed to an engraver in the Clothworkers' Company, he was made free of the Company in August of 1771. He entered into a partnership with the family of Thomas Jeffreys, a prolific and well-respected mapmaker who had recently died in 1771. This partnership lasted until 1776. 

Also in 1776, Faden joined the Society of Civil Engineers, which later changed its name to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers. The Smeatonians operated as an elite, yet practical, dining club and his membership led Faden to several engineering publications, including canal plans and plans of other new engineering projects.

Faden's star rose during the American Revolution, when he produced popular maps and atlases focused on the American colonies and the battles that raged within them. In 1783, just as the war ended, Faden inherited his father's estate, allowing him to fully control his business and expand it; in the same year he gained the title "Geographer in Ordinary to his Majesty."

Faden also commanded a large stock of British county maps, which made him attractive as a partner to the Ordnance Survey; he published the first Ordnance map in 1801, a map of Kent. The Admiralty also admired his work and acquired some of his plates which were re-issued as official naval charts.

Faden was renowned for his ingenuity as well as his business acumen. In 1796 he was awarded a gold medal by the Society of Arts. With his brother-in-law, the astronomer and painter John Russell, he created the first extant lunar globe.

After retiring in 1823 the lucrative business passed to James Wyld, a former apprentice. He died in Shepperton in 1826, leaving a large estate.