George Frederick Cruchley (1797-1880) had learned his trade with Aaron Arrowsmith and began to work for himself in 1823. His early days were 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. 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 first published the ‘County Atlas of England & Wales’. The importance of the railways was such by now that they are specifically referred to in the title. Each map has a new title, and the railways are added. A rare work, only four examples are known.

Even rarer is this 1864 edition of which this is the only known example. There was a further dated editions of 1875 with undated issues in-between. All editions are rare. Provenance: pencil inscription on contents leaf of H. B. Sutton; Donald Hodson collection (1933-2016), carto-bibliographer, acquired prior to 1969. Beresiner pp. 93-5; not in Chubb; Hodson (1964) 56B; 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.