1.       John Hooker                                                                        1587

 


The first printed maps of the city appeared towards the end of the 16th century. Exeter was in the extremely fortunate situation of having an antiquarian and historian as its first Chamberlain and one who was also both surveyor and draftsman. John Hooker (c1527-1601) was the son of Robert Hooker or Robert Vowell, Mayor of Exeter in 1529. The Vowell family, prominent Exeter citizens for a number of generations, obtained the name Hooker in the 15th century but used the name Vowell regularly. John’s parents died when he was ten and he was brought up by Doctor Moreman, vicar of Menhinit in Cornwall. He went to Oxford to study civil law, and then travelled and studied under leading protestant figures in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. He returned to France but, because of the wars there, returned to Exeter where he subsequently married and pursued his interests in history and antiquities. In 1549 he was in Exeter at the time of the siege during the Prayer Book Rebellion and in 1555 the magistrates of the city elected him to be their first Chamberlain. He was engaged by Sir Peter Carew as legal advisor over property disputes in Ireland and Hooker became a member of both the English and the Irish parliaments.

In the following years he commissioned a number of his own works from London publishers which were often intended as New Year gifts. He wrote many histories among which was a Catalogue of the Bishops of Exeter and an Historical Record of the Province of Devon and finally his Antique Description and Account of the City of Exeter, which was not printed until 1765 by Andrew Price of Exeter. As an influential member of the Exeter society it is highly likely that John Hooker would have met Christopher Saxton when he was surveying Devon for his county map published in 1575 (B&B 1), and it is probably no coincidence that the Flemish engraver Remigius Hogenberg engraved both the county and the city maps. This map was commissioned in London by Hooker, possibly inspired by Hogenberg’s 1559 map of London. 

Title: Isca Damnoniorum: britanice Kaier penhuelgorte: Saxonice Monketon: Latine Exonia: Anglice Excancestre vel Excestre at nunc vulgo Exeter: Urbs peratiqua, et Emporium celeberrimum.

Size: 350 x 525 mm. There is a scale bar but no scale is entered.

Signature: Opera et impensis Joannis Hokeri generosi ac huius Civitatis quaestoris, hanc tabella sculpsit Remigius Hogenbergius Anno Dei 1587. 

The plan is a bird’s eye view, looking north-east, with the river flowing left to right. This view, much copied by the early map-makers, brings with it considerable fore-shortening and to a plan much inaccuracy. The names of the principal streets, churches and buildings are given with boats and fishermen on the river and a crane (marked Crane Seller) on the Key. Racks for drying the wool can be seen to the southwest of the city at Snail’s Tower with just a single line at Shilhay.

The title is in a plain rectangle at the top with the Royal Arms and the City Arms (granted in 1567). Just above the empty scale bar is a pair of dividers and, in the left corner, Hooker’s own arms and his motto Post Mortem Vita. As described here only a single copy is known, bought by the British Library in 1897 for 16 guineas, but there are a number of later states extant as well as copies (see Appendix A). In the third state (illustrated) the road from Larkbeare to St. Leonard’s and Radford Place takes a distinctive right bend.

Further manuscript maps drawn by Hooker were printed and published in the late nineteenth century (see 59 and 60).


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