Samuel Lewis (c. 1782 – 1865) was the editor and publisher of topographical dictionaries and maps of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Gre ...

. The aim of the texts was to give in 'a condensed form', a faithful and impartial description of each place. The firm of Samuel Lewis and Co. was based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Samuel Lewis the elder died in 1865. His son of the same name predeceased him in 1862.

''A Topographical Dictionary of England''

This work contains every fact of importance tending to illustrate the local

history of England England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BBC News. Retrieved 7 Februar ...

. Arranged alphabetically by place (

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

, etc.), it provides a faithful description of all English localities as they existed at the time of first publication (1831), showing exactly where a particular civil parish was located in relation to the nearest town or towns, the barony,

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

, and

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

in which it was situated, its principal landowners, the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

in which it was situated, and—of novel importance—the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

district in which the parish was located and the names of corresponding Catholic parishes. There were six subsequent editions, the last of which (1848-9) was in four volumes and an atlas.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Wales''

First published in 1833, there was a second edition in 1837, a third in 1843, and a fourth (in two volumes and an atlas) in 1849. A topographical dictionary of Wales vol

The title page of the first edition gives an indication of the ambitious scope of the work: The work is in two large volumes with a folding map of Wales and separate county maps facing the entry for each individual county. The 4th edition was transcribed and made available free-to-view online by the University of London.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland''

First published in 1837 in two volumes, with an accompanying atlas, it marked a new and significantly higher standard in such accounts of Ireland. Apart from ''The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland'' published in 1845, it has not been superseded. The first edition is available online. A second edition was published in 1842. In the 1837 preface, the editor noted that: Lewis relied on the information provided by local contributors and on the earlier works published such as Coote's ''Statistical Survey'' (1801), Taylor and Skinner's ''Maps of the Road of Ireland'' (1777), Pigot's ''Trade Directory'' (1824) and other sources. He also used the various parliamentary reports and in particular the census of 1831 and the education returns of the 1820s and early 1830s. Local contributors were given the proof sheets for final comment and revision. The names of places are those in use prior to the publication of the

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was ...

Atlas in 1838. Distances are in Irish miles (the statute mile is 0.62 of an Irish mile). The dictionary gives a unique picture of Ireland before the Great Famine.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland''

First published in 1846 in two volumes and an atlas.

References

External links

* ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' seventh edition (1848) *
full text
at

British History Online ''British History Online'' is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain and Ireland. It was created and is managed as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, Uni ...

** Scanned volume
1: A–C2: D–K3: L–R4: S–Z
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

''A Topographical Dictionary of Wales''
fourth edition (1849), full text on British History Online.
''A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland''
first edition (1837), full text on Library Ireland.
''A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland''
first edition (1846), full text on British History Online. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Samuel English cartographers 1782 births 1865 deaths 19th-century English writers Publishers (people) from London 19th-century British businesspeople