Talk on Thomas Kitchin, eighteenth-century cartographer from St Albans, by Laurence Worms

Thanks to all those who attended last night's fascinating talk by Laurence Worms on the 18th-century cartographer Thomas Kitchen, who lived in Fishpool Street.

There were 70 attendees and after expenses (the speaker has very kindly waived his fee) the proceeds will go to Blue Plaques St Albans for more blue plaques (10 have so far been installed).

Thomas Kitchin (1717–1784)

Why a plaque:

Kitchin was an engraver and cartographer whose maps were used for international peace treaties and who became hydrographer to King George lll. He also wrote about the history of the West Indies. He produced 170 maps for the London Magazine (1747–83) which would prove sufficient companion for the entire history of his time. The etched decoration from his workshop was among the most impressive of all English rococo work.

Importance to St Albans:

He retired to St Albans and continued map-making to the end of his life. He is buried, alongside his wife, in St Albans Abbey.

History:

He was probably born in the parish of St Olave, Southwark, on 1 December 1717, apparently the eldest child of Thomas Kitchin, hat dyer, and Mary Birr, who had married in 1716.

Kitchin was apprenticed to the map engraver Emanuel Bowen on 6 December 1732. Seven years later, he finished his time and married his master's daughter, Sarah. Despite the family connection, Kitchin worked independently from at least 1741. From 1746, when he was made free of the Merchant Taylors' Company, he took on apprentices in his expanding firm. His early production includes John Elphinstone's 1746 map of Scotland (used before the Battle of Culloden), the first pocket atlas of Scotland, Geographia Scotiae (1748–9), and The Small English Atlas (1749), co-published with Thomas Jefferys, another of Bowen's apprentices. The Large English Atlas (serially produced with Bowen between 1749 and 1760) was the most important county atlas since Elizabethan times and the first real attempt to cover the whole country at large scale. In 1755 Kitchin engraved the great John Mitchell map of North America, used at the peace treaties of Paris and Versailles, and the standard map until the end of the century.

By late 1755 Kitchin was established in Holborn Hill, running a substantial business producing all kinds of engraved material. Further county atlases appeared in the 1760s. Larger individual works were Andrew Armstrong's survey of Northumberland (1769), awarded a 50 guinea prize by the Society of Arts, the twelve-sheet road map England and Wales (1770), and Bernhard Ratzer's elegant plans of New York (1769–70). From 1773 Kitchin appears in the Royal Kalendar as hydrographer to the king. Eventually retiring from Holborn to St Albans, Kitchin continued map making to the end of his life. Prolific and reliable, he produced countless maps for travel books and geographies, and the 170 maps he produced for the London Magazine alone (1747–83) would prove sufficient companion for the entire history of his time.

As an engraver, Kitchin showed a fine technical facility, the lettering clean and assured, and the etched decoration from his workshop was among the most impressive of all English rococo work. Clues to his personal life are meagre, although it is known that he was extremely active in the Baptist community and served as deacon of his chapel. His will, which requests burial 'with as little expense as may be', shows a more than conventional piety. Kitchin died in St Albans on 23 June 1784 and was buried in St Albans Abbey on 29 June. A memorial inscription in St Albans Abbey has not survived.