AARON ARROWSMITH Biography - Pioneers, Explorers & inventors

 
 

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AARON ARROWSMITH

Name: Aaron Arrowsmith                                                               
Born: 1750                                                                           
Died: 1823                                                                           
                                                                                     
                                                                                     
Aaron Arrowsmith was an English geographer  and member of                           
the Arrowsmith family of geographers. He moved to Soho Square, London from           
Winston, County Durham when about twenty years of age, and was employed by John     
Cary, the engraver and held for some years the office of hydrographer to the         
king. In January 1790 he made himself famous by his large chart of the world on     
Mercator projection. Four years later he published another large map of the         
world on the globular projection, with a companion volume of explanation. The       
maps of North America (1796) and Scotland (1807) are the most celebrated of his     
many later productions. He left two sons, Aaron and Samuel, the elder of whom       
was the compiler of the Eton Comparative Atlas, of a Biblical atlas, and of         
various manuals of geography.                                                                                                                                                   
The business was thus carried on in company with John Arrowsmith (1790-1873),         
nephew of the elder Aaron. In 1821, they published a more complete North             
American map from a combination of a maps obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company     
and Aaron's previous one. In 1834 John published his London Atlas, the best set       
of maps then in existence. He followed up the atlas with a long series of             
elaborate and carefully executed maps, those of Australia, America, Africa and       
India being especially valuable. In 1863 he received the gold medal of the Royal     
Geographical Society, of which body he was one of the founders.