136b. Edward Weller - Weekly Dispatch II 1864-1867

 

Publishers at La Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill, Cassell, Petter & Galpin purchased the plates and stock of the Weekly Dispatch Atlas in 1864 and immediately advertised their atlas. They used old stock plus sheets with amendments and new imprints side by side (see below) until all plates had been revised. The maps were also issued weekly as loose sheets to the readers of Cassell's Illustrated Family Newspaper.1 The maps were used to produce other geographical works: Cassell's Folio Atlases, Cassell's Pocket Maps and Cassell's Tourist Guides. From 1869 the maps were being offered by Bacon (see next entry 136c).

John Cassell (1817-1865) was a keen supporter of the teetotal movement and lectured against drinking and is known to have visited the westcountry in 1840/41.2 He founded a tea and coffee business before going into publishing and printed a number of works aimed at the working man such as almanacks, tracts, a temperance monthly and a weekly radical newspaper. He ventured into book publishing in 1850 and in 1851 was advertising guides to the Great Exhibition in English and French. Thomas Dixon Galpin (b.1828) and the five years senior George William Petter ran a printing business with which Cassell worked frequently. In 1855 Cassell ran into financial problems and Petter and Galpin bought his business, retaining the Cassell name and moving into his printing premises. John Cassell had little more to do with the running of the firm and died in 1865. Thomas Galpin was related to George Lock of Ward, Lock & Co.3 Petter and Galpin both had westcountry connections: a Petter of Barnstaple was High Bailiff of North Devon at the beginning of the century and his grandson, George William began as an apprentice draper in Barnstaple before moving to London, and Galpin (b.1828) moved to London c.1851 from Dorset.

Size: 300 x 425 mm.                                                                                                                                        British Statute Miles (15 = 95 mm).

3. 1864 North sheet is as State 2. South sheet has the designs of Mercury, scroll and hemisphere deleted and new imprints: LONDON, PUBLISHED BY CASSELL; PETTER & GALPIN, LA BELLE SAUVAGE YARD, LUDGATE HILL, E C. (EeOS) and MACLURE, MACDONALD& MACGREGOR’S STEAM LITHO: MACHINES, LONDON. (AeOS).4 Railways: L&SWR through Honiton to Exeter, lines to Chard, Tavistock, Exmouth, Kingswear and a line from Tor Mohan to Torquay town centre. (KB).
       
    Cassell's County Atlas  
    London. Cassell, Petter and Galpin. (1864). NMM.
       
4. 1864 The two sheets are numbered 36 and 37 (EeOS). South sheet has title, signature, scale and list of symbols now raised to make room for table of statistics for 1861 (Ee). Reference to MACLURE etc. removed. North sheet has L&SWR through Honiton to Exeter and the designs of Mercury, scroll and hemisphere have been deleted. 5 (KB), (FB).
       
    Cassell's Illustrated Family Newspaper  
    London. Cassell, Petter and Galpin. 1864. BL.
       
    Cassell's Complete Atlas  
    London. Cassell, Petter and Galpin. (1866). RGS.
       
    Cassell's British Atlas (was issued in monthly parts)6  
    London. Cassell, Petter and Galpin. (1867). BL, W, C, Leeds.
       

[1] One of Cassell's more successful ventures, this paper began in 1853 and, under different titles, survived until 1932.

[2] S Nowell-Smith; 1958; pp. 8, 29, 42, 51ff and D Smith; Cassell and Co; in The IMCoS Journal; Issue 70; 1997.

[3] Edward Liveing in Adventure in Publishing (Ward Lock & Co. Ltd; 1954; p.29) recounts that Cassell, Petter and Galpin sold quantities of maps from the Dispatch Atlas to Ward and Lock in 1863.

[4] The printers Maclure, Macdonald and Macgregor were soon changed. They also printed a late version of Dix and Darton's (82) Devon map.

[5] Other counties are known in this state either as folding maps in a cover entitled Cassell's County Maps For Road And Rail or mounted and folded in a cover with the title Cassell's Shilling County Maps Mounted On Linen.

[6] Issued initially in 19 monthly parts of six maps each from February 1864 to August 1865 with five supplementary parts published September 1866 to January 1867.The BL copy has a second title page: Cassell's Universal Atlas.