An Atlas of the Southern Part of India, Including Plans of All the Principal Towns & Cantonments, Reduced from the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, Shewing Also the Tenasserim Provinces
J & C Walker, An Atlas of the Southern Part of India, Including Plans of All the Principal Towns & Cantonments, Reduced from the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, Showing Also the Tenasserim Provinces, London: J. & C. Walker, 1854
Atlas complete with 67 engraved maps and plans, comprising detailed district survey sheets of the Madras Presidency and Southern India (including Mysore, Coorg, Malabar, Travancore and Cochin), the Dominions of His Highness the Nizam, and the Tanasserim Province, together with a substantial suite of engraved town and cantonment plans (Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Nagpoor, Quilon, Trichinopoly, Vellore, Vizianagram, etc.), all reduced from the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India; the majority of plates on uniform folio sheets, several folding or double-page as issued. Maps engraved by J. & C. Walker after official Survey of India data, reduced from the Great Trigonometrical Survey
Original dark cloth boards, the upper cover gilt-lettered within an ornate decorative cartouche “ATLAS OF SOUTHERN INDIA”, spine in matching black cloth, gilt-lettered and ornamented in a vertical floral device. Covers ruled in blind, with the title also repeated in gilt on the spine
28.5 x 24 cm
Plate-by-Plate List of Maps and Plans
Districts
1. Tinnevelly / 2. Madura / 3. Tanjore / 4. Trichinopoly / 5. Travancore and Cochin / 6. Coimbatoor / 7. Malabar / 8. Salem / 9. Chingleput / 10. North Arcot / 11. South Arcot / 12. Mysore / 13. Mysore — Astagram Division / 13. Bangalore ditto / 14. Chittel Droog ditto / 15. Nuggur ditto / 16. Coorg / 17. North Canara / 18. South Canara / 19. Bellary / 20. Cuddapah / 21. Kurnool / 22. Nellore / 23. Guntoor / 24. Masulipatam / 25. Rajahmundry / 26. Vizagapatam / 27. Ganjam
The Dominions of His Highness the Nizam
28. Kummummett / 29. Davercondah, Ghunpoora, and Pangul / 30. Raichoor and Moodgul / 31. Suggur, Koolburgha, Mulkhaid, Hoomanabad, and Koilcondah / 32. Medduck, Golcondah, Bhonagheer, and Nelcondah / 33. Nuldroog, Kullianee, Beder, and Kowlass / 34. Eilgundel, Mullangoor, and Warungul / 35. Nandair / 36. Bheer, Dharoor, and Purraindah / 37. Dowlatabad, Jaulnah, Pyton, and Baythul-waddy / 38. Maiker, Bassim, and Patree / 39. Nurnulla and Gawilgurh / 40. Mahur and Ramgheer / 41. Paumben Pass, and Ramisseram Island
Tanasserim Province
42. Amherst / 43. Malacca / 44. Mergui / 45. Tavoy / 46. Singapore
Towns and Cantonments
47. Madras / 48. Bangalore / 49. Bellary / 50. Ellore / 51. Hyderabad / 52. Secunderabad / 53. Jaulnah / 54. Merkara / 55. Nagpoor City / 56. Nagpoor City and Environs / 57. Seetabuldee / 58. Kamptee / 59. Paulghautcherry / 60. Palaveram / 61. Quilon / 62. Ramunmullay / 63. Ramnad / 64. Samulcottah / 65. Trichinopoly / 66. Vellore / 67. Vizianagram
A Rare First-Edition Atlas of Southern India Reduced from the Great Trigonometrical Survey—Walker and Pharoah’s Monumental Compilation of Districts, Cantonments, and Colonial Urban Centres (Madras, 1854)
Published in Madras in 1854 in its first edition by Pharoah & Co., J. & C. Walker’s An Atlas of the Southern Part of India, Including Plans of All the Principal Towns & Cantonments remains one of the most significant cartographic milestones in the history of colonial South Asia. Reduced from official Survey of India data derived from the Great Trigonometrical Survey, this landmark volume translates one of the most ambitious scientific enterprises of the nineteenth century—associated with figures such as William Lambton and George Everest—into a practical, regionally focused reference work of exceptional administrative and military utility.
Comprising a remarkable suite of 67 individual engraved maps and plans, the atlas stands among the earliest systematic attempts to compile the geography of Southern India into a single unified book. These sheets are some of the only—and among the first—obtainable mid-nineteenth-century printed plans for many South Indian cities, giving numerous districts and urban centres a distinct cartographic identity at a moment of rapid colonial consolidation. Unlike earlier mapping shaped by coastal encounter, missionary geography, or political abstraction, Walker’s atlas presents the peninsula as a fully integrated territorial system: presidencies, districts, and boundaries rendered with trigonometric precision, and towns treated not as picturesque sites but as operational nodes within an imperial network.
The atlas delineates a wide range of southern districts, including Tinnevelly, Madura, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Travancore & Cochin, Coimbatore, Malabar, Salem, Chingleput, Arcot, Mysore divisions (Astagram, Bangalore and related regions), Coorg, Canara, Bellary, Cuddapah, Kurnool, Nellore, Guntur, Masulipatam, Rajahmundry, Vizagapatam, and Ganjam, among others. For the first time, many of these regions appear with a separate administrative coherence within a dedicated India-focused atlas.
A particular strength lies in the inclusion of detailed plans of 21 principal towns and cantonments, engraved at varying scales—from approximately 16 miles to an inch for district mapping down to 1,300 feet to an inch for urban plans. These include Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Vellore, Nagpur, Kamptee, Palaveram, Quilon, Ellore, Trichinopoly, Vizianagaram, and Rameswaram Island, among others. The plans highlight military and colonial infrastructure—barracks, hospitals, arsenals, roads, elevations, fortifications, and administrative boundaries—underscoring the centrality of cantonments and garrison towns to British governance in the peninsula.
The atlas also extends beyond South India proper to include the Tenasserim Provinces in Burma (modern Myanmar), reflecting Britain’s territorial expansion following the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826) and the strategic desire to secure trade routes toward China while buffering against rival European influence. A further remarkable inclusion is a rare mid-nineteenth-century map of Singapore, situating Southern India within a broader interconnected geography of British Asia across the Bay of Bengal.
The date of publication is historically resonant: issued only three years before the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the atlas belongs to the final phase of Company rule and anticipates the transition to direct Crown governance in 1858. Works of this kind facilitated colonial administration and exploitation, portraying India through a Eurocentric framework that privileged trade corridors, military control, and bureaucratic legibility. In this sense, the atlas exemplifies the era’s “scientific imperialism,” in which Enlightenment rationalism and survey accuracy—supported by instruments such as Everest’s refined theodolite work—were inseparable from the mechanisms of empire, taxation, and territorial control.
As a historical artefact, the atlas is distinguished by its meticulous detail and reliance on trigonometric data, offering accuracy far superior to earlier speculative maps. The town plans are particularly valuable, preserving snapshots of urban form during a period of rapid colonial urbanisation, and the engravings remain crisp, functional, and intelligible even for modern geographic comparison.
The maps were engraved under the imprint J. & C. Walker, the celebrated Walker family of engravers and hydrographers. John Walker (1787–1873) was a leading British map seller, engraver, lithographer, and official hydrographer to the East India Company, continuing a family tradition in nautical and geographic publishing. Working with his brothers Charles and Alexander, Walker produced more than 200 maps for the influential SDUK atlas and numerous charts for Horsburgh and the Admiralty Hydrographic Office, including important surveys of Hong Kong and Karachi.
Publication in Madras by J. B. Pharoah (fl. c. 1838–1869), one of the city’s foremost booksellers and publishers on Mount Road, further underscores the work’s position within the administrative and intellectual infrastructure of British South India. Pharoah’s firm served as a major emporium for European printed works and issued educational maps, journals, and newspapers central to colonial knowledge circulation.
Rare at auction and of outstanding documentary importance, An Atlas of the Southern Part of India is an indispensable resource for collectors and historians alike: a milestone of nineteenth-century survey cartography, a primary record of Southern India’s districts and cantonments, and a powerful testament to the role of maps as instruments of empire.
NON-EXPORTABLE
This lot is offered at RESERVE
This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each lot.