John Kirby (1690–13 December, 1753,

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

) was an English land surveyor and

topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

. His book ''The Suffolk Traveller'', first published in 1735, was the first single county road-book.John Blatchly, ''John Kirby's Suffolk: His Maps and Roadbooks'' (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004) Kirby lived in

Wickham Market Wickham Market is a large village and electoral ward situated in the River Deben valley of Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coastal heritage area. It is on the A12 trunk road north-east of the county town of Ipswich, north-east of Wood ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

and spent three years between 1732 and 1734 surveying the entire county. For part of this project he was accompanied by Nathaniel Bacon. In 1736 he published a large-scale map of Suffolk. Subscribers to this received a copy of his book as a free gift. A further large scale map was published the following year.

Life

Kirby, born in 1690 at

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

, Suffolk, was originally a schoolmaster at Orford in that county, and afterwards occupied a mill at

. Kirby died on 13 Dec. 1753, at Ipswich, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary at Tower, Ipswich. His portrait, by

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

, R.A., was in 1868 in the possession of the Rev. Kirby Trimmer. He married in 1714 Alice Brown.

''The Suffolk Traveller''

In 1735 he published at Ipswich, in

duodecimo Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. I ...

, ''The Suffolk Traveller; or, a Journey through Suffolk,'' a road-book with

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

notices, from an actual survey which he made of the whole county in 1732, 1733, and 1734. Prefixed is a small map of the county. A new edition was published by subscription, with 'many alterations and large additions by several hands,' in 1764, 8vo, London, under the editorship of the Rev. Richard Canning, of which a reprint was issued from Woodbridge about 1800, containing some trifling additions, and a fourth edition, with additions, appeared as ''A Topographical . . . Description of the County of Suffolk,'' 8vo, Woodbridge, 1829, with Ebden's map in place of Kirby's. A ''Supplement to the Suffolk Traveller'' was published in 1844 by Augustine Page (cf. his Introduction, p. vi). In 1736 Kirby issued ''A Map of the County of Suffolk,'' illustrated with coats of arms and views. An improved edition, engraved by John Ryland, was published on a larger scale in 1766 by his sons

Joshua Kirby Joshua Kirby (1716, Parham, Suffolk – 1774, Kew), often mistakenly called John Joshua Kirby, was an English 18th-century landscape painter, engraver, writer, draughtsman and architect famed for his publications and teaching on linear perspect ...

and William Kirby.For a summary of the family of John Kirby, see John Freeman, ''Life of the Rev. William Kirby, M.A.'' (Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1852
Chapter 1

References

;Attribution:

External links

* https://archive.org/details/suffolktraveller00kirb {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirby, John 1690 births 1753 deaths 18th-century English people English surveyors English topographers English male writers People from Halesworth People from Suffolk Coastal (district)