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South Coast Harbours 1698
report by Edmund Dummer and Thomas Wiltshaw

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HMCMS Map Collection inventory entry
Survey of the Ports on the South West Coast of England

Report, descriptive text and charts, A Survey of the Ports on the South West Coast of England from Dover to the Lands-end, made by Edmund Dummer and Captain Thomas Wiltshaw, Royal Navy, 1698.
Made together with Captain James Conaway and Captain William Cruft, Masters of Trinity House at Deptford.
The bound volume has manuscript maps with descriptions of particular ports and harbours, some towns being shown in plan. The harbours surveyed, original spellings, are:- Rye, Pemsey, Cookmere, New-haven, Shoreham, Arundell, Southampton &c., Bussleton, Beauley, Lymington, Christ Church, Poole & Purbeck, Weymouth & Melcomb Regis, Exmouth, Dartmouth, Fowey, Falmouth and Helford.
title page:-
A SURVEY of the Ports of the South West Coast of England from Dover to the Lands-End
wxh:- 24x36cm
wxh, page:- 23.5x35.5cm
item:- HMCMS:FA1991.24

notes:- Edmund Dummer was appointed Surveyor to the Navy at Portsmouth, Hampshire, he was officer in charge of dockyard stores and ship maintenance. In 1698 he initiated a plan to survey harbours on the south coast, at a time when war with France, and possible invasion, was a real threat. The survey was allowed only 2 months for 18 harbours, and involved Captain Thomas Wiltshaw of the navy and Captains Conaway and Cruft of Trinity House. Given this short time the surveying was understandably sketchy. Nine copies of the report were made:-
  • 3 are known in the British Museum - Sloane MS3233
  • 3 in the National Maritime Museum
  • 1 in the Royal Geographical Society
  • 1 in Hampshire CC Museums Service (HMCMS)
  • where is the ninth?
A separate plan of Portsmouth and Southampton Water made by Edmund Dummer, 1698, not included in this survey, is in the British Museum, King's MS 43 fol.89.

Facing the title page of the HMCMS copy of the report is a bookplate, a coat of arms and crest with motto:-
DEO DUCENTE
and the engravers mark:-
[Exdriel] Sculpt.
Below the bookplate an owner has pasted a slip cut from a sale catalogue. The book was lot 824 and assessed as:-
... very neatly drawn, an official manuscript.

In the transcriptions some freedom has been taken with the layout where strict line-by-line transcription (with space slash space, / , to denote newline) would make a nonsense.

Note that the letters in the tables of particulars refer to letters in the charts.

references:-
Robinson, A H W: 1962: Marine Cartography in Britain: Leicester University Press

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Title, Address and Orders
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South Coast Harbours 1698
report by Edmund Dummer and Thomas Wiltshaw