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 railway’s, postal, telegraph and other useful information. These particular maps are from John Cary’s ‘Improved Map of England & Wales’, 1832. An analysis of the railways present would place a date of issue of between 1860 and 1862. Published on half the scale of the Ordnance Map of England. Provenance: 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.