John Ogilby was a Scottish impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was a pioneer in the making of road atlases and is most noted for his major work titled Britannia- an atlas of 100 strip maps of the roads of Britain with detailed descriptive text for each road.
During the great Fire of London 1666 Ogilby lost his house and most of his stock. But he was subsequently appointed by the Corporation of London as one of four "sworn viewers" to resolve property disputes in the city and made what he claimed to be the most accurate survey of the City of London that had ever been done. John Ogilby then published a series of atlases starting in 1669 with An Embassy from the East India Company etc. and followed with atlases of China, Japan, Africa Asia and America.
In 1671 the King appointed him Royal Cosmographer following his proposal to make a detailed atlas of Great Britain and he began work on this publication -Britannia- shortly afterwards, publishing it in1674. Ogilby used a "surveyor's wheel " to measure the distances along the roads - a method still used to this day - and drew the maps at a scale of 1 inch to the mile or 1:63,360 - a method that he developed.
The following is an extract from the second page of this volume from John Ogilvy himself -
"To the Reader The Ingenious Author (whose great Abilities for these sorts of performances, are sufficiently known to the World) having received express Orders from King Charles II for Surveying the Principal Roads of the Kingdom of England and the Dominion of Wales, put them in Execution, with Indefatigable Pains and Industry: Afterwards having compleated the several Descriptions, he Dedicated them to that Judicious Prince, and Published them in a large folio A.D. 1674."
