John Wood, the 19th-century urban cartographer, surveyed almost 150 towns spread widely across Great Britain. His detailed large-scale plans are an astounding achievement. In light of this, two questions are posed: did he have a strategy that guided the places which he surveyed; and how did he pay for his work, given that so few copies of his plans appear to have been produced for sale – or at least to have survived.

John Wood 2: Planning and Paying for His Town Plans

A History Of The Ordnance Survey

The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850@@@The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850. Volume 2

John Wood's town plans and the evolving urban hierarchy of Cumbria

Do large cities grow more or less rapidly than small ones? Why should the relationship between city size and population growth vary so much from one period to another? This book studies the process of population growth in a national set of cities, relating its findings to the theoretical concepts of urban geography. To test his ideas, the author studies the growth of cities in England and Wales between 1801 and 1911. His explanations draw strongly on the connection between growth and the adoption of innovations. He develops a model of innovation diffusions in a set of cities and, in support of this model, looks at the way in which three particular innovations - the telephone, building societies and gaslighting - spread amongst English towns in the nineteenth century.
This book was first published in 1973.

Additional excerpts

Urban Growth: An Approach

A History of the Ordnance Survey

This is an introductory volume on the history of English maps. The authors adopt the revisionist perspectives of the "new" history of cartography, and review a broad range of maps, ranging in date from about 700 AD to the beginning of the 20th century. Their principle objective is to explore the ways in which maps have interacted with society in England's past, to analyze the roles that maps have played and the uses to which they have been put. The authors recognize many connections across the centuries, at the same time seeking to avoid to insular a view, noting the influence of ongoing intellectual and cartographic developments in the rest of Europe.

John Wood 2: Planning and Paying for His Town Plans

Citations

A History Of The Ordnance Survey

The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850@@@The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850. Volume 2

John Wood's town plans and the evolving urban hierarchy of Cumbria

References

Urban Growth: An Approach

A History of the Ordnance Survey

English Maps: A History

Chartered surveyors: The growth of a profession

The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland

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