A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland...

On the morning of Tuesday 23rd January 1816, 15 Buckingham Street, London, William Smith inspects and signs map ‘b4’, completing the final step in the creation of this incarnation of his publication, A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland; exhibiting the collieries and mines, the marshes and fen lands originally overflowed by the sea, and the varieties of soil according to the variations in the substrata, illustrated by the most descriptive names. A work that is acknowledged as the first geological map of a country ever produced.

Smith 1815 strata map

Smith Memoir

Map 'b4', the UC copy, is a travelling set, designed on three sheets of linen and boxed together with the accompanying Memoir. On the case there appears a bookplate with the motto 'Antiqua Virtus' (Ancient Virtue) and the name 'Thomas Cuff'. This plate is very similar to the Coat of Arms of the Cuff (Cuffe) line from Ireland. It is unknown how the map came to be in New Zealand, but there is a family who settled on Banks Peninsula in 1853 who are descendents of this landowning family.

The map made its way to the Canterbury Museum in 1919 by means of donation by Robert Speight, although it remains a mystery how it came into his possession. Speight was a Curator at the Museum and Lecturer at Canterbury College at the time. The map was transferred to the College Library in 1935, the year Speight retired from the Museum. It is now housed at the Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury.

Related items

Thomas Cuff

Robert Speight

Further Resources

Maxwell Gage. 'Speight, Robert', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1996. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3s30/speight-robert (accessed 7 April 2022)

William Smith Biography from William Smith's Maps - Interactive. UK Onshore Geophysical Library

How to cite this page:

Damian Cairns. 'A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland...'. University of Canterbury Library Provenance, https://digitalvoyages.canterbury.ac.nz/omeka-s/s/provenance-project/page/smith-strata (Access date)