Old Map of London 1890 – Bacon’s Traveller’s Map

Name: Old Map of London 1890 – Bacon’s Traveller’s Map
SKU: 77
Price: 39.95 GBP
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£39.95

Bacon’s Traveller’s Map of London, 1890

Published by G. W. Bacon & Co. in 1890, this detailed traveller’s map captures London at the height of the late Victorian period. It stretches across the capital from West Kensington to the West India Docks and from Hampstead south toward Brixton and Camberwell, presenting a broad practical view of the city for residents and visitors.

The dense street network is accompanied by railways, stations, ferries, docks and important public buildings, making transport one of the map’s most revealing themes. By 1890 London’s main-line railway system had already transformed the city, allowing suburban districts to expand rapidly while major termini connected the capital with the rest of Britain.

The parks are particularly carefully drawn. Hyde Park, Regent’s Park and other open spaces interrupt the surrounding streets and provide clear landmarks within the growing metropolis. To the east, the dock system around the Thames illustrates London’s continuing importance as an international port.

The map also records a city on the threshold of another transport revolution. The Metropolitan and District railways were already operating beneath and through parts of London, while the first deep-level electric tube railway would open that same year, 1890. Bacon’s map therefore belongs to the moment when Victorian London was becoming the modern transport city.

George Washington Bacon was an American-born publisher who established his London map business in 1870. His firm became well known for practical maps and atlases, and this Traveller’s Map reflects that commercial tradition: clear, detailed and designed to help the user understand a complicated city.

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Description

Bacon’s 1890 Traveller’s Map of London is a practical late-Victorian plan showing a broad sweep of the capital at a time of rapid suburban and transport growth.

Map Details

Publisher: G. W. Bacon & Co.
Date: 1890
Map type: Traveller’s map of London
Coverage: From West Kensington to the West India Docks, and from Hampstead south to Brixton and Camberwell
Features: Streets, railways, stations, ferries, docks, parks and principal buildings

Late-Victorian London

By 1890 London had expanded far beyond the compact city shown on Georgian maps. Former villages had become urban districts, continuous streets spread across both sides of the Thames, and millions of journeys depended on an increasingly elaborate transport system.

Railways, Stations and the Underground

The railway network is one of the key historical features. Main-line routes enter London from every direction, while suburban services connect the centre with rapidly growing residential districts.

The date is particularly significant because 1890 also saw the opening of the City & South London Railway, the world’s first deep-level electric underground railway. Bacon’s map therefore sits at the dividing line between the early Victorian underground network and the tube system that would follow.

The Thames and the Docks

To the east, the West India Docks and other docklands underline London’s role as a global trading port. Ferries and river crossings show that the Thames remained a working transport artery as well as a geographical boundary.

Parks and the Shape of the City

Large parks remain conspicuous amid dense development. Their carefully drawn paths and boundaries make them useful visual anchors and show how important planned open space had become within the nineteenth-century metropolis.

G. W. Bacon & Co.

Bacon’s firm specialised in accessible commercial maps for travellers, households and reference use. This map’s combination of broad coverage and practical detail is typical of that approach and helps explain why Bacon became such a familiar name in British popular cartography.

Print size: approximately 24" × 31". Supplied unframed.