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).