George Frederick Cruchley (1797-1880) had learned his trade with Aaron Arrowsmith and began to work for himself in 1823. His early days concentrated on publishing maps of London but following the death of John Cary in 1834 he acquired much of the stock from the surviving heirs. Cruchley made lithographic transfers from the plates until he sold them all in 1877. Cruchley’s main marketing tool was to add to the original plates details of the railways, postal, telegraph and other useful information. These plates were originally published by Cary as the ‘New and Correct English Atlas’, 1809. Although quite probably acquired at an earlier date Cruchley does not appear to have made use of them until 1863 when he published the ‘County Atlas of England & Wales’. There was a further edition dated 1864 and a final one dated 1875. In between it was issued without date as in this example. All editions are rare. Provenance: manuscript ownership inscription to inside front cover; private English collection. Beresiner pp. 93-5; Nicholson (2003) ‘G. F. Cruchley and ‘Maps for the Million’, in IMCoS Journal 93 pp. 21-38; Smith, ‘George Frederick Cruchley, 1796-1880’, in ‘The Map Collector’ no. 49 pp. 16-22.