India – West Coast. Bombay Harbour (Admiralty Chart 2621)

c.1959

Offset print on paper

Print size: 44 x 28 in (111.8 x 71.1 cm)

INDIA – WEST COAST. BOMBAY HARBOUR (ADMIRALTY CHART 2621), C.1959

Admiralty Chart 2621 (Bombay Harbour) was first issued in the late 19th century and repeatedly updated; post-Independence editions were compiled from Indian Government Surveys (1954–57) with corrections by the Bombay Port Trust in 1959.

A large, authoritative harbour chart depicting Bombay (Mumbai) Harbour from the tip of Colaba and the city peninsula northwards into Thane Creek, and eastwards across Elephanta Island, Butcher Island (Jawahar Dweep), Uran and the Karanja promontory. The sheet is densely engraved with soundings (in fathoms/feet), banks and shoals, leading lines, light characteristics, buoyage, compass roses, tide tables/notes, and harbour infrastructure, including docks and oil installations, then expanding under the Bombay Port Trust. A coastal profile/view is engraved in the lower margin (typical of this edition), aiding visual landfall identification. This is one of the key mid-century UKHO harbour sheets that synthesised pre-war Admiralty work with post-Independence Indian surveys, part of a continuous sequence of 2621 editions recorded by the UKHO and museum catalogues.

Since 1795 the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty has issued charts for the Royal Navy and commercial mariners, revising them via Notices to Mariners as port works, channels and lights evolved. Bombay Harbour, a complex estuarine system shaped by tidal flats and monsoon sediment, demanded frequent resurvey. Nineteenth-century Admiralty sheets—based on work by officers such as R. W. Whish and J. E. Powell—were followed by enlarged harbour plans (e.g., the Port of Bombay at larger scale) and, by the 1950s, comprehensive revisions from Indian Government Surveys (1954–57) with Bombay Port Trust corrections, reflecting the post-war expansion of docks, refineries and approaches. Chart No. 2621 became the standard mariner’s reference for the whole harbour and its approaches, while related sheets at larger scale (e.g., the Port of Bombay, Admiralty No. 655/2624) served berthing and pilotage. These editions illustrate the transition from colonial to national hydrography and the continuity of Admiralty cartographic practice into the mid-twentieth century.

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