# Why were map-engravers sketchy people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 21, 2021, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698 "2021-11-21T01:53:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/1 "2021-11-21T01:53:05Z")
I was re-reading Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. In one section there is a passage: "Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men; map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of obscure enterprises. " Lawyers who might take shabby clients I can see, and architects who have fallen on hard times, but what about the map-engravers? ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/2 "2021-11-21T02:01:01Z")
For a multitude of reasons. Google books won’t let me copy and paste the relevant chapters, but this drops you right on a page that discusses a few of the reasons. > **[Map of a Nation](https://books.google.com/books?id=q57yDwAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PP120&hl=en)** > > This “absorbing history of the Ordnance Survey”—the first complete map of the British Isles—"charts the many hurdles map-makers have had to overcome” (The Guardian, UK).  Map of a Nation tells the story of the creation of the Ordnance Survey map, the... ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/3 "2021-11-21T02:05:02Z")
Interesting! Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/4 "2021-11-21T05:08:42Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men Aside from the above answer, this phrase does not indicate that all the sorts of men listed are sketchy or shady. “All sorts and conditions” just means that it is a variety of different types who, for whatever reason, had to or chose to live or work in lower-quality surroundings. Maybe map-engraving was an honest but ill-paid profession (although apparently not). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/5 "2021-11-21T08:32:09Z")
The phrase is from one of the Collects from the Book of Common Prayer, and refers to God looking after all people, regardless of their social status: [https://crossref-it.info/repository/sayings/All-sorts-and-conditions-of-men?p=1&q\_repository=](https://crossref-it.info/repository/sayings/All-sorts-and-conditions-of-men?p=1&q_repository=) ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/6 "2021-11-21T09:26:26Z")
Elsewhere in the book, the author says that surveyors and mapmakers were not welcome in the countryside as they were seen as the precursor of change and taxes. Wikipedia says: Estate surveyors were disliked by farmers and tenants, who might refuse them access, wrote [Eva Taylor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Germaine_Rimington_Taylor): > This was partly because they feared that their holdings would prove larger than the old written records indicated, with a consequent raising of the rent, or more generally that ‘concealed lands’ would be revealed… Among the ignorant, however, there was a superstitious fear of the man who could ‘measure at a distance’, since this appeared to be a species of conjuring or black magic.\> ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/7 "2021-11-21T10:20:23Z")
It’s worth noting that a map engraver is a completely different profession from a mapmaker or surveyor. An engraver created plates for printing. He had nothing to do with making the maps themselves. From the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engraving): > Engraving was a historically important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in **mapmaking** , and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines. It has long been replaced by various photographic processes in its commercial applications and, partly because of the difficulty of learning the technique, is much less common in printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by etching and other techniques. Copying a map on to an engraving plate required careful and meticulous work, but it was a mechanical process, not a creative process. It was a lowly job and not well paid. Other forms of engraving required far more more skill and artistry. Map engraving required the least engraving skill. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/8 "2021-11-21T12:51:09Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > For a multitude of reasons. Google books won’t let me copy and paste the relevant chapters, but this drops you right on a page that discusses a few of the reasons. Nice. If you hadn’t beat me to it, I’d have cited the equivalent passage from Andro Linklater’s book “Owning the Earth.” ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/9 "2021-11-21T12:53:50Z")
What about “Pwning The Earth”? (I am a child, forgive me and pray continue.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/10 "2021-11-21T12:59:19Z")
Ha. Well, that would emphasize the environmental consequences of the anthropocene era — perhaps with a wry hint that our hubris will be punished (we THINK we’re pwning…) Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/11 "2021-11-21T14:40:40Z")
Getting back to the thread title, prior to CAD, wouldn’t all engravers be sketchy people? 😙 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-map-engravers-sketchy-people/954698/12 "2021-11-21T14:48:50Z")
That very thought caused me to open the thread to learn why it would be here, as opposed to, say, MPSIMS.