Old Map of London (All) of Islington - Shadwell - Newington Butts - Tyburn circa 1792

The London Directory, or a New & Improved Plan of London, Westminster, & Southwark; with adjacent Country, the New Buildings, the New Roads, and the late alterations by the Opening of New Streets & Widening of others.

Extent: Islington - Shadwell - Newington Butts - Tyburn

The London Directory or New Plan of London, Westminster & Southwark. Taken from the original antique copper engraved map printed in 1792 and published by Robert Sayer of No.53 Fleet Street. This clearly engraved map was first published in 1765. At the lower margin of the map is a "Table of references to the churches and other public buildings showing their situation in the above plan"

The place known today as Speakers’ Corner began life as a place for public execution. The Tyburn tree was in fact a wooden gallows where criminals were hung. Tyburn Road is now Oxford Street, and Tyburn Lane is now Park Lane. In use for 650 years, at one stage up to 24 people could be hung together at the same time. In 1724, Jack Sheppard, or "Honest Jack," was a notorious highway man who was to be hanged for stealing three rolls of cloth, two silver spoons, and a silk handkerchief. He was arrested and imprisoned five times between 1723 and 1724 but escaped four times, making him notorious among the poor. The 18th-century novelist Daniel Defoe, fascinated by the historical Jack Shepperd's daring prison escapes, wrote a pseudo-autobiography, A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, etc. of John Sheppard, in 1724, the same year as Shepard’s death at the age of 22. The real Jack Sheppard was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn and had planned one last great escape. Daniel Defoe and Appleby, the publisher, planned to retrieve the body after the requisite 15 minutes on the gallows and retrieve the body to be revived. However, the numerous onlookers surged towards the scaffold as its trap door opened to ensure the condemned youth a speedy death by pulling on his legs. He was buried that night in the cemetery of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

When this map was published:

In England the trial began of the Bounty mutineers. Overseas the French revolution was in full swing and there was a concern by some that it would spread to London. The Ottoman Empire was forced to cede the Crimea to Russia, the echos of which reverberate today. In the United States the Bill of Rights became Law. The population of London had now reached around 1,000,000 from approximately 700,000 in 1750.

Darlington & Howgego 138