Lure of maps

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 16

Lure of maps

Collecting with Myrtle Duff

Being ' incapable of drawing a reasonable likeness of anything, I had become accustomed to a lowly position in the art class early in my school career, but was disconcerted to find that this disability also affected my rating in a favourite subject, geography. An accurate map, drawn from memory, was essential in an examination. Knowledge of a country’s mountains, lakes, and rivers, its people and the things they produced for export or needed to import was insufficient compensation.

I developed a dislike of maps which was not diminished by later difficulties encountered in dealing with unfolded street maps in the driver’s seat of a small car. All this changed recently when I met a Christchurch collector, Millward Mathews.

Mil cannot recall having made a definite decision to collect maps, but believes his interest arose from having been brought up in a hill country farm east of Eketahuna and the influence of an uncle who shared his enthusiasm for the boy-scout movement.

In standard two he was intrigued by a small inset in his atlast depicting a plan for the city of Canberra. He also recalls .being given a jig-saw in the form of a map of Europe with all the Nazioccupied areas composed

of pieces in the shape of a swastika. When most of us are settling down with a good book or contemplating an evening’s television viewing, Mil is deciding which of his 3000 maps to read. Some cover the walls of his home, but most are stored in Planhorse trolleys which can be wheeled from room to room.

The earliest maps are believed to be those impressed on small clay tablets by the Babylonians. Fragments of these survive, one being dated from about 3000 B.C.

An Egyptian Papyrus map from 1300 also survives, and there have been skilled cartographers in all the succeeding civilisations. Such rarities are not available here but there is a sufficient variety to keep any keen collector busy. The earliest local map in the Mathews’ collection is one of “The Riccarton Road District” of 1879, which includes the Fendalton Parish and School and also covers what is now the southern part of Waimairi.

He resists any attempts to put a monetary value on his collection or any particular map, but places great value, because of its interest, on an atlas published in New York in 1862. Known as “Colton’s General Atlas (with descriptions),” it was once owned by Joseph Brittan (of Linwood) who was a member of the Canterbury Provincial Council in about 1854 and bears his signature. It was rescued from a Paparua County rubbish collection, and given to its present owner. Among facts about New Zealand listed in this atlas are:

1. “The natives furnish perhaps the finest specimens of savage man.” 2. New Zealand population in 1851: 26,656 souls (15,000 males, 12,000 females). 3. Main export — flax. 4. Population of Canterbury in 1851: 3734.”

New Zealand’s first inhabitants, though skilled navigators with accurate knowledge of coastlines and the topography of their land, lacked facili-

ties for recording such things which were passed on by word of mouth. One of Mil’s favourites is a Canadian map showing short portages; canoe routes and “Winter roads” indicating that travel is sometimes on iced lakes. Another which he describes as “ugly” is a Scottish tourist map littered with purple symbols, though he does not object to tourist maps in general and includes many in his collection.

Two of these are of particular interest to many New Zealanders being of Scotland and Ireland. The former is embellished with illustrations of the coats of arms of the various clans, and pic-' tures of historic and prehistoric things of interest” the “Standing Stones” of Lewis; the tweed-makers of Harris — though the two women pictured are spinning, not weaving; the capture of Montrose (1650) and the Norse raiders of the eighth and nineth centuries.

The Irish map shows similar emblems and scenes from the past — Ancient High Kings of the fourth century; St Patrick landing in A.D. 432; a number of cathedrals and abbeys, quotations from that country’s many gifted

poets and a sad scene of the famine migration to the New World in the nineteenth century. This collector has derived great pleasure from his hobby and is happy to share his knowledge or assist in any way others who may be interested.

He has contributed to the development of map collections at the Canterbury Library, and cares for maps at three libraries in the Waimairi district. He has also assisted in this field in libraries throughout New Zealand, from Whangarei to

Timaru. People interested may contact him by writing care of P.O. Box 12078, Christchurch 2. The maps illustrated are reproductions of early British County maps, one of Monmouth dated 1610, the other of Hereford Shyre in 1577.