[CARTOGRAPHY] John Coles, Royal Geographical Society map curator : signed letter to A. C. Macdonald of the Geographical Society of Australasia, re. the gift of a large map of New South Wales. April, 1

A$100 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Signed

Manuscript in ink, 1 page, small quarto (230 x 180 mm), on the letterhead of the RGS, London; dated 11 April 1885, the letter is addressed to A. C. Macdonald Esq., Melbourne ; written in a secretarial hand, but with the autograph signature at the foot of John Coles, Map Curator, RGS ; some off-setting and light marks, otherwise good condition. Sir, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your large Map of New South Wales (on rollers), and to express to you the thanks of the Society for the donation . Born two years after its inception, John Coles (1832-1910) would become a prominent and significant figure at the Royal Geographical Society in London in the second half of the nineteenth century, serving for twenty-three years as its Map Curator and Instructor in Practical Astronomy and Surveying. His Australian contemporary, Alexander Cameron Macdonald (1828-1917), surveyor and geographer, was a founding member of the Geographical Society of Australasia, which was formed in Sydney in 1883, with a branch in Victoria added the same year. After the addition of Queensland and South Australian chapters, the institution became known as the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia from 1886. Provenance: Autograph album compiled by Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924), The Briars, Mornington, Victoria (Australia); à Beckett family, Melbourne (by descent).

• Binding: Hardcover

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