Terrestrial Pocket Globe. A New Terrestrial Globe: from the best Authorities, by J. Addison & Co

A superb small miniature terrestrial globe produced by John Addison & Co. at their premises in Regent Street in 1816.

The globe is beautifully housed and enclosed within its original black fish skin case, complete with original hook, clasp, and hinge. The interior of the fish skin case is a striking scarlet colour. The case will close. The globe has its original metal pinions. This globe is in good condition. It has a lovely ‘aged’ feel and patina that can only be achieved by time. The globe is seen in original hand colour, with greens, reds, and off-white.

There is cracking to the original lacquered gores, a few minor marks and abrasions – entirely normal and consistent with a globe of this age. Some gores have suffered a slight loss, some loss and discolouration to the gores culminating at the South Pole. The fish skin case is in good condition, and has the normal crazed cracking in its interior; at the extremities of the case have the usual signs of general rubbing and wear.

Historically, globes are among the most ancient scientific instruments known to man. They can be dated back over two millennia and are still manufactured to this day. The earliest tradition of globe making is mainly concerned with celestial globes – man has always been fascinated and drawn to the heavens above Celestial globes have always enjoyed a precedent of terrestrial globes. Doubts about the feasibility of a terrestrial globe were firmly expressed by the Greek geographer Strabo, who wrote that such a globe would only make sense if its diameter were approximately 10 feet, presumably because only then could it furnish sufficient geographical detail! The great second-century Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and geographer, Claudius Ptolemy, also considered the large size of a globe to be somewhat of an obstacle and noted a further shortcoming of a terrestrial globe – that one could not view the whole world on it in a single glance. As a result, terrestrial globes were not as popular until much later. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are recognized as the high points of English globe making, and this globe illustrates this fact admirably. Many English globes were exported to the continent and throughout the world, many finding their way into famous scientific institutions, libraries, and the stately homes of gentlemen and aristocrats. T

he real beauty of globes is that they can be considered to be “all things to all men”; to some they are useful and practical educational tools, (3D maps perhaps); to some others as beautiful and useful scientific instruments; and to more, they may be seen purely as decorative, beautiful pieces of furniture; to be envied and enjoyed, but more importantly, and above all, to be admired by all.

John Addison is recorded in Clifton (Gloria Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851) as a globe maker working from Regent Street, 50 London Street (Fitzroy Square), and 7 Hampstead Road, London, 1800 – 1819. He was granted Royal appointment in 1820 and was trading as Addison and Co. after around 1815. Later John Addison and Company are recorded as working from 9 Skinner Street (Snow Hill) 1800-21, 116 Regent Street 1822-25 and finally 275 Strand 1829-30. Addison is known to have produced terrestrial and celestial globes in many sizes from three inches through to his magnificent thirty-six inch ‘Terraqueous Globe’.