Father of English Cartography
The history of cartography in England owes a singular and foundational debt to the works of Christopher Saxton (c. 1540 - 1610), whose pioneering county maps represented the first comprehensive topographical survey of England and Wales. Often heralded as the "father of English cartography," Saxton's meticulously drafted maps, along with his atlas, laid the cornerstone for modern mapping in Britain, exerting influence not only on contemporary understandings of territory and governance, but also on cartographic methodologies which endured well into the 19th century.
Little is known of the formative years of Christopher Saxton, but archival sources suggest he was born in or near Yorkshire around 1540. It is likely he received his early education in the parish of Dunningley, in the West Riding electoral district of Yorkshire. By the 1560s he was known to be residing at the household of John Rudd the vicar of Dewsbury, who was not only a highly educated and active churchman, but also an accomplished surveyor, draftsman, and cartographer who had been commissioned by William Cecil, or Lord Burghley as known at court, to draw a new map of England. Extant records document the two-year leave granted to him by Elizabeth I from his duties at Durham Cathedral for the purpose of mapping England in its entirety. Additionally, she required that the Chapter (governing body) of Durham support Rudd during that time. Rudd was assisted in his work by Christopher Saxton. The map below of County Durham is the work of John Rudd.
Rudd’s influence on Saxton was no doubt formative, for as a surveyor, Rudd had already embarked on this project, and was mapping counties. He would have passed on both practical skills and theoretical grounding while Saxton studied with him, and Saxton’s own maps show a precision and geographical coherence which appear to have been built on Rudd’s works.
Isle of Wight by John Rudd
Though no specific records of a university education have ever been found, the intellectual rigor and mathematical exactitude of Saxton’s work suggest he was well-versed in the mathematical sciences of the Renaissance. His apprenticeship under Rudd would have been complemented by exposure to increasingly sophisticated navigational and surveying techniques which flourished during England’s nascent age of exploration.
Perhaps Saxton’s most important contribution lay in his use of triangulation - a method based on the geometric principle that the measurement of one side and two angles of a triangle can determine all other elements. By selecting prominent geographic features such as church towers or hilltops as fixed observation points, Saxton and his assistants were able to measure distances between locations using sightlines and chains, thereby constructing a mathematically rigorous framework for their maps.
Dutch polymath Gemma Frisius published his treatise on triangulation in 1533, which was adopted and utilized by contemporary cartographers such as Sebastian Münster, and which would surely have been known of, if not available, to Saxton. Though the method was not invented by Saxton, his systematic application of it for maps which charted the counties of the nation’s landscape was unusual for its time.
These triangulation-based surveys brought a new level of spatial accuracy to English maps and contributed to the development of the scientific-based cartography which would then be championed two centuries later by the Ordnance Survey. The technique enabled Saxton to overcome distortions which were typical of earlier medieval mappemonde, thus grounding England's cartographic representation in measurable geographic terrain. Additionally, the methodology enabled Saxton to create the first atlas of England and Wales, a detailed, methodical, and visually appealing representation of the country which set a precedent for future mapmaking and shaping the manner in which maps were to be used in the British Isles.