Live Auction 5506Travel, Science and Natural History
A 3-inch English Pocket Globe
Lot 95

A 3-inch English Pocket Globe

DUDLEY ADAMS, 1808

Closed8 October 2014

Price Realised

GBP 4,375

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A 3-inch English Pocket Globe
Dudley Adams, 1808
A New GLOBE of the Earth by Dudley Adams 1808 J.Mynde Sc. The globe comprised of twelve hand-coloured engraved paper gores by J. Mynde, the equator or equinoctial in green, the ecliptic line in black and graduated in days. Australia named New Holland and New South Wales, Port Jackson and Botany Bay labelled, also Diemen's Land, de Wit's Land and Lewin's Land, Tasmania not depicted as an island. New Zealand shown but no Antarctic land, the Chinese Wall is depicted, California is a peninsula and Canada has no northern coast; in original simulated fish-skin case, the interior laid with celestial gores with blue hand-colouring
3¼in. (8cm.) diam

Specialist note

DETAILED AND DELICATELY COLOURED POCKET GLOBE BY THE GLOBEMAKER TO GEORGE III. The youngest child of George Adams senior (1709-1772) by his second marriage, Dudley Adams was apprenticed to his brother George to train as a mathematical instrument maker. On his marriage ten years later, his mother gave him the globe plates and tools that had belonged to his father, and in 1788 he opened his own shop at 53 Charing Cross. In 1794, possibly as a result of supplying 28-inch globes for Lord Macartney's mission to China, he was appointed globemaker to George III, a prestigious post previously held by his father. However, he lived well beyond his means, and his bankruptcy in 1817 ended the Adams instrument business, founded in 1734.