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Description

George Gauld's Map of South Florida, the Bahamas and north coast of Cuba.

Rare sea chart of South Florida, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and part of Cuba, based upon the Surveys of Charles Roberts and George Gauld.

Faden's map is the only realistically obtainable example of the masterwork of George Gauld during the period immediately prior to the Revolution.

The map depicts the meticulous observations made by Gauld, including not just topographical features but also water currents and the routes of the British and Spanish ships plying these waters. His treatment of Florida, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas was the most detailed and accurate charting of the region to date, with his maps still in circulation until the mid 19th Century.

Following the French & Indian War, George Gauld, a Scotish surveyor, was assigned the task of charting the waters off the Gulf Coast of West Florida. Between 1764 and 1781 Gauld mapped an area that extended from New Orleans to the western coast of modern-day Florida. Recognizing the importance of his work to all those who traveled in the area, Gauld readily shared his work with scientific societies in America, including the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

In 1781, he was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, in their invasion of Florida.

During the Revolutionary War, Gauld was forced to suspend his work in the Dry Tortugas and Florida Keys due to attacks by American privateers, and in 1781, Gauld was taken prisoner at the Siege of Pensacola. He was subsequently taken to Havana and then New York, before being repatriated to England, where he died shortly afterwards.

Gauld's charts were published posthumously by Faden and later by the Admiralty in very limited numbers. The results of his surveys were not published until the year 1790.

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.