Map of London's Underground as run by separate companies

GILL, Leslie MacDonald.

UndergrounD. Map of Electric Railways of London.
London: Dangerfield Printing Company for Electric Railway House, 1921. Colour-printed folding map. 280 x 340mm.

A map of the London underground rail network, dated '9-3-21' on reverse, so published a decade before the operating companies were amalgamated as 'London Transport'. It shows the stations with more geographic accuracy than the iconic design of Henry C. Beck, also a decade later. The style of the map is influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement: the script used for the station names is particularly striking. Later in the same year this map was reissued, overprinted with detail relating to the British Empire Exhibition.
Leslie MacDonald Gill (1884-1947), younger brother of Eric Gill, specialised in graphic design in the Arts and Crafts style. His most important commission was from the Imperial War Graves Commission, designing the script used on Commission headstones and war memorials, including the 'Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme'. He produced a number of maps, two of which appeared in the British Museum exhibition 'Magnificent Maps in 2010: 'The Wonderground Map of London' (1914) & 'Tea Revives the World' (1940).


Stock ID : 20852