British India, Northern Part. British India, Southern Part

0 x 0 in   |  0 x 0 cm

Thomson’s Hindostan Divided—With a Rare Early Commercial Inset Mapping Nepal and the Road to Lhasa

a) John Thomson, Northern Hindostan, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; Dublin: John Cumming; Edinburgh: John Thomson, 1817
Print size: 20.5 x 23.5 in (52 x 60 cm)
Sheet size: 21.25 x 28.35 in (54 x 72 cm)

The map encompasses the Gangetic plain, Oudh, Rohilkhand, Delhi, and the Punjab frontier and extends northward to the recently contested territories of Nepal and Kumaon. It reflects the redrawn boundaries resulting from the Treaty of Sugauli, which compelled Nepal to cede wide Himalayan tracts to the Company. Politically, the region in 1817 was a mosaic: the declining Mughal court, the rising Sikh power in the Punjab under Ranjit Singh, unstable Rohilla and Afghan pockets, and the growing administrative reach of the Company in Bengal and the North-West. Thomson’s rendering — engraved with clarity and engraved lettering distinctive of Edinburgh production — combines topographical accuracy with a sense of geopolitical order emerging from decades of conflict and reform. Much of the upper portion of this map includes a detailed inset of the Kingdom of Nepal or Nepaul. This area is depicted in impressive detail considering that, when this map was printed, very few Western travellers had ever been to Nepal. Includes roads, mountain passes and the residences of important Lamas. Extends fully into the Tibetan plateau as far as Te Shoo Loomboo and the Road to Lhasa (Lassa).

Much of the upper portion of this map includes a detailed inset of the Kingdom of Nepal or Nepaul. This area is depicted in impressive detail considering that, when this map was printed, very few Western travellers had ever been to Nepal. Includes roads, mountain passes and the residences of important Lamas. Extends fully into the Tibetan plateau as far as Te Shoo Loomboo and the Road to Lhasa (Lassa).

b) John Thomson, Southern Hindostan, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817
Print size: 20.5 x 23.5 in (52 x 60 cm)
Sheet size: 21.25 x 28.35 in (54 x 72 cm)

This extremely rare hand-coloured map of South India by Thomson and engraved by Samuel John Neele extends from Aurangabad to Ceylon This highly detailed map shows provinces, towns, roads, rivers, lakes, mountains, islands, etc. Various areas controlled by the British, the Nabob of Oudh, Berar, Nizam, Mysore, the Mahrattas, Travancore and Candy are depicted in various coded colours.

These impressive folio maps originate from John Thomson’s New General Atlas, one of the most ambitious Scottish cartographic publications of the early nineteenth century. This large atlas map presents the complete peninsular region at a moment of profound political transformation. Following the death of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam in 1799 and the consequent restructuring of Mysore under British supervision, the early nineteenth century witnessed the firm consolidation of Company power across Southern India. Thomson’s map captures this transition with geographical precision, charting the administrative reorganisation of the Carnatic, the delineation of the restored Mysore kingdom, the territories of Travancore and Cochin, and the principal maritime approaches of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts.

Ceylon (Sri Lanka), incorporated as a Crown Colony in 1802, appears here in close geographical dialogue with the peninsula, reflecting strengthened strategic and commercial linkages across the Bay of Bengal. Thomson’s cartographic style is marked by clarity, well-spaced lettering, and an emphasis on natural geography – river networks, coastal outlines, and the Western and Eastern Ghats – all rendered with the graceful engraving for which Scottish mapmaking of the period is renowned.

Thomson, working at a moment of intense British military and diplomatic engagement in the Himalaya, drew upon updated East India Company surveys, intelligence from the Anglo-Nepal War (1814–16), and material compiled by Rennell’s successors to articulate a clearer geographical picture of Northern India than had ever appeared in a commercial atlas.

This map, together with its northern counterpart, forms a coherent vision of the subcontinent in the immediate aftermath of a series of transformative wars, documenting both territorial settlement and increasing administrative control.

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