Index no. 0040

Hobson's Fox-Hunting Atlas

1850

John and Charles Walker were engravers and publishers, and were responsible for several atlases, including those published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1837 they produced the 42 county maps on which this work is based. There were traditionally 42 English counties.

Hobson used maps printed from the Walkers' lithographic plates, and added features relevant to fox-hunting: the territory of each hunt is outlined in watercolour, and the places of meets are indicated by black spots.

Two of the county plates, Lancashire and Westmorland, do not show any hunts. Instead they use colour to show divisions of the county. The Fernie (in Leicestershire) is not shown, as it did not come into existence until 1853, when it took over the southern part of the territory of the Quorn.

Since 2005, hunting with dogs in England has been illegal. However there are still many active hunts – many more than in 1850. There were maps of the contemporary territories of British hunts on Old Norris' Fox Hunting Page. They may still be accessible via the Wayback Machine.

Scanning and other details about this work.

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