The maps from Emanuel Bowen and Thomas Kitchin’s beautiful ‘Large English Atlas’ were first issued separately and early issues of the work can be found with varying contents. The final tally of sheets for the atlas was forty-five. The project began at the hands of the publisher John Hinton before he ran into financial difficulties. They are superb clear and concise engravings. In the history of English county atlases it is hard to think of one with finer quality. Wardington praised the book saying that ‘the size of the plate presented the publishers, the engravers and the printers with as formidable a task as any posed by the finest productions of Louis XIV or XV, the best of the Dutch engravings fifty years earlier, or the Ordnance Survey sheets fifty years later’. Hodson (221) provides a thorough account of the complex history of this atlas, which was finally completed and issued with a title-page in c.1762.

Tinney died in the spring of 1761, control of his estate being granted to his sister on 14 April 1761. Harold Whitaker reported that an atlas was issued with the imprint of Tinney removed from the title page however no known example has been located. There had been a spate of advertising in May of 1762 which began ‘This Day are published …’ which often marks a new edition. At this time Tinney’s imprint was removed from the maps and to reflect the change of ownership of the atlas the order of some of them was changed. From this Hodson calculates that it was Robert Sayer who purchased Tinney’s shares most likely from his sister. The shareholding was now Thomas Bowles had four shares, Robert Sayer three and John Bowles and Son two. As this work was undertaken to the maps plate numbers were also added.

In the Public Advertiser for 16 May 1763, it was announced that two new maps of Scotland and Ireland had been added to the atlas. In October 1763 John Bowles ordered 200 copies of the ‘Title to Bowen’s English atlas, large folio’ to be printed by William Strahan in ‘red and black’ at a cost of £1. 12s. 0d. These were again undated and reflected another change. John Bowles’ son Carington Bowles (1724-93) left the partnership and took over that of his uncle Thomas Bowles (1688-1767). This is believed to have been in 1762 when Thomas was about 74 years old. At first Carington Bowles continued trading under his uncle’s name as can be seen in the new imprint but by 1764 he was using his own. The early owner of this example is Ralph Bates (1764-1813) who was from a prominent Northumbrian family. He became High Sheriff of the County and later Deputy Lieutenant. Provenance: bookplate of Ralph Bates, Milbourne Hall; private English collection; Clive A Burden Ltd. Catalogue 2 (2008) item 28; private foreign collection. Not in Chubb; Hodson 223; not in BL Shirley (2004).