The availability of original copper plates for printed maps is an extremely rare occurrence. Once in a while a small insignificant copperplate appears on the market, but to find one of great importance is very special. Indeed the last occasion that can be recalled was the appearance of ONE of the copper plates to the so called multi-sheet Copperplate Plan of London c.1559. This was sold at a Sotheby’s auction on 23 July 1985 for £50,000. Prior to that ONE copper plate of the multi-sheet Christopher Saxton wall map of England and Wales c.1580 appeared on the market in 1979 for £28,000!

The General Assembly of the Corporation of Norwich commissioned William Salter Millard to produce a large scale survey of the city. Millard was a leading land surveyor in Norwich. According to Raymond Frostick he had been appointed Steward of the estates of the Bethel Hospital in 1807. A set of Proposals were printed by John Stacy outlining its publication by subscription, the price was given as one guinea and was accepted by leading booksellers in the city. A copy of these proposals survive in the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Library and state that ‘The numerous and important improvements which have taken place or are now in progress in the City and PORT of Norwich, will, it is presumed, make this work of considerable interest’. Indeed it is the first detailed survey undertaken since that by Anthony Hochstetter in 1789. That single sheet map was drawn to the scale of 19.5 inches to the mile, the Millard and Manning was to be nearly 33 inches to the mile!

To engrave the four plates Millard asked Joseph Dallinger who was an engraver at 18 Davey Place in Norwich. To help in the survey Millard employed the services of Joseph Manning another surveyor in Norwich since 1819. Although the Proposals are undated the finished map was published in 1830. It centred on the walled city itself and did not extend out into the county although it alludes to the fact that the city was growing beyond its ancient confines. The detail is truly remarkable and shows the city just prior to its explosion during the following hundred years. The dedication upper right is to the ‘Alderman Sheriffs and Commonalty of the city of Norwich’ by ‘their obliging and Obedient Servant W. S. Millard’. The table of references identifies 35 churches in roman numerals and 42 public buildings.

Two examples of the printed map are cited by Frostick at the Historic Maps Collection in Norwich Castle Museum and the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library at the Norfolk Heritage Centre, no example could be traced in the British Library or on COPAC. In the Eastern Daily Press of 16 May 2003 it was reported that the four original copper plates of Millard and Manning’s plan of Norwich were sold in a car boot sale near Ipswich that month. Their subsequent home was unknown and no question of title was ever raised. Frostick (2002) no. 53.