Selina Hall (1780?-1853) English, 1842 Hand-Colored Map of the West Indies. Shows the Caribbean, with color coding for the different nationalities that controlled each part of it at the time. Publisher information written bottom left. Cartographer information written bottom right. 

Overall Size: 13 x 16 in. 

Sight Size: 7 3/4 x 10 in. 

#4756 

In 1831 a man in London named Sidney Hall (born circa 1789) passed away at the relatively young age of forty-two. He was a British engraver and cartographer, well known and popular for his early 19th Century atlases containing maps of the United Kingdom and of the ancient world. He made maps for several international atlases by William Faden, Aaron Arrowsmith, and Chapman & Hall, and had also engraved a series of cards for the various constellations, published a few years prior in a boxed set called Urania’s Mirror. Having worked in Piccadilly for over two decades, Hall is credited with being the first engraver to use steel plates in map engraving. When he passed away, his will stipulated that his widow, Selina Hall (born circa 1780), was to carry on the business, which she did at a new address in Bloomsbury. Prior to his death all their works were signed with “Sid Hall,” and from then on, to avoid questions of propriety by having a woman in such a profession, they were similarly signed “S Hall,” which led to the belief for nearly two centuries that they were all done by the same person. In reality, perhaps half of the 700 maps attributed to Sidney were made by his wife, who eventually passed away in 1853, leaving the business to her nephew, Edward Weller. It is even possible she was responsible for more, since originally she had been married to the engraver Michael Thomson, Sidney’s business partner, before his death in 1821. It was illegal for married women to own businesses in England at the time, which probably means quite a few businesses were actually run by extremely competent wives like Selina without getting the credit they deserved.