Ellis Martin
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Ellis Martin (1881–1977) was an English commercial artist. For most of his working life he was employed by Britain's map making organisation the
Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...
, for which he performed painting, drawing and calligraphy for their map and book covers, and for their advertisements. He was the first person to be employed by the Survey specifically as an illustrator.


Early life

Ellis Martin was born in
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
on 12 November 1881. He went to school at King's College School,
Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...
and then went to the
Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
where he was a contemporary of Augustus John. He became a professional artist, sometimes hired as a full-time resident artist and at other times freelance, for example for Selfridges. He worked exclusively for the bookshop and news vendor
W.H. Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...
for six years, often drawing advertisements for the monthly magazine ''
Advertising World ''Advertising World'' was a magazine started in 1901 by William Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose DL (23 June 1879 – 15 June 1954) was a British peer and newspaper publisher. Life and career Berry was born ...
'' which was published and printed by W.H. Smith, and for national newspapers. His work also appeared in ''The Newsbasket'', W.H. Smith's staff magazine. He married Mabel Verstage in 1910 and they had a daughter, Gentian, who died at an early age in 1940.


Military service

On the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 he joined up as a
sapper A sapper, also called a pioneer (military), pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefie ...
in the
Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...
where he was posted overseas. Later in the
Royal Tank Regiment The Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) is the oldest tank unit in the world, being formed by the British Army in 1916 during the First World War. Today, it is the armoured regiment of the British Army's 12th Armoured Infantry Brigade. Formerly known as th ...
his work was as a field artist to produce maps and drawings of battle zones to aid the movements of troops in difficult terrain and for aiming heavy artillery accurately. Noticing his talent, a commanding officer suggested applying to work after the war for the
Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...
which had been founded to provide military maps and during the war was exclusively producing maps for the military.


Career with Ordnance Survey


Ordnance Survey up to 1918

By 1914 the Ordnance Survey, a government department, had the reputation for producing "the best maps in the world". Sales were to the
War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
and to civil administrative departments, primarily of large-scale maps, but it had less interest in providing maps for the general public so the presentation and advertising was perfunctory. Commercial firms copied the Ordnance Survey work (either with or without permission) to produce publications with attractive covers, sometimes improperly describing their maps as "Ordnance" or even "Ordnance Survey", and sometimes the actual cartography was of a poor standard. Such maps sold profitably and well. A three-man committee under Sir Sydney Oliver was set up to investigate the matter and it recognised that new leisure pursuits such as cycling and motoring would lead to a considerable demand for small-scale maps, such as 1
inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth") ...
to 1
mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...
(1:63360). Those that were available from the Ordnance Survey were very poorly distributed with covers that were flimsy and mundane and gave little clue as to what was inside. The committee recommended that, in particular, maps should be widely advertised and they should have robust, attractive covers. However, before any improvements could get underway, war broke out, many staff went into active service, and only war maps were to be produced.


Martin's artistic work

Taking the advice of his commanding officer (who possibly knew of the work of the Oliver Committee), in 1918 Martin applied for a job by submitting a watercolour and crayon design for a Christmas card – the building depicted is the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey in
Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
. The Director General
Charles Close Colonel Sir Charles Frederick Arden-Close, (10 August 1865 – 19 December 1952) was a British geographer and surveyor. He was Director General of the Ordnance Survey from 1911 to 1922. His insistence on attention to detail saw the improv ...
appointed him to a new post as the Survey's first full-time artist. Martin started in May 1919 with his picture already having been used for the Survey's official 1918 staff Christmas card. He lived and worked in Southampton and earned a salary of 10 /- (50 p) a week, comparable to that of an agricultural labourer in the 1890s. He went on to design several more staff Christmas cards and, less ephemerally, the memorial stained glass windows for staff who had died in the War. Martin designed the cover for a 1921 official report, one copy of which was sent by the Survey's Central Bureau, led by Harold Winterbotham, to
Arthur Hinks Arthur Robert Hinks, CBE, FRS (26 May 1873 – 14 April 1945) was a British astronomer and geographer. As an astronomer, he is best known for his work in determining the distance from the Sun to the Earth (the astronomical unit) from 1900 to ...
, the rather irascible secretary of the
Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
. Hinks wrote to Winterbotham "I have admired the cover, but have not yet dipped into the Report". According to the Survey's 1921 Annual Report, map sales rose considerably to the highest ever in the Survey's history. Close thought this "curious" because the price had been significantly increased and he thought an important aspect was the attractive nature of Martin's covers. Indeed, he gave tribute to Martin's work and submitted some of them to the 1921 Exhibition of British Industrial Art.


1920s individual covers

Martin's work was primarily to create the covers for Ordnance Survey maps for which he was the person mainly responsible from 1919 to when he retired in 1940. One of his earlier ambitious works was for a 20-sheet six-inch map of London. The picture is a night scene looking at the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
downstream from
Hungerford Bridge The Hungerford Bridge crosses the River Thames in London, and lies between Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. Owned by Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd (who use its official name of Charing Cross Bridge) it is a steel truss railway bridge ...
. As with all his map covers, the
calligraphy Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
and
Royal Arms The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, or the royal arms for short, is the arms of dominion of the British monarch, currently King Charles III. These arms are used by the King in his official capacity as monarch of the United Kingdom. Varian ...
were individually hand drawn. What is often considered Martin's finest work is his 1923 painting for ''The Middle Thames'' set at
Boulter's Lock Boulter's Lock is a lock and weir on the River Thames in England north-east of Maidenhead town centre, Berkshire. The present 1912-built lock replaces those at this point of the river to the immediate east dating from the late 16th century an ...
at
Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England, on the southwestern bank of the River Thames. It had an estimated population of 70,374 and forms part of the border with southern Bu ...
. Browne considers it to be the high point in Ordnance Survey cover art.


Standard covers

His most famous map cover was for the Survey's "Popular Edition" series of 1-inch maps which were current throughout the 1920s. The cyclist shown is dressed in a
Norfolk jacket A Norfolk jacket is a loose, belted, single-breasted tweed jacket with box pleats on the back and front, with a belt or half-belt. It was originally designed as a shooting coat that did not bind when the elbow was raised to fire. Its origin is un ...
, plus-fours and a tweed cap. When it was succeeded by the Fifth Edition of 1931, Martin's cover showed the figure wearing a shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a slipover – but the same view. These covers adorned the standard OS maps until the end of the Second World War and succeeded because Martin had reflected changing social attitudes.


1930s covers

For the series of 1-inch District and Tourist maps of the 1930s Martin had painted a full-colour scene for the waterproof covers. In 1969 '' Country Life'' opined One of Martin's paintings of 1932 shows a hiker contemplating the climb up Cleeve Hill. It was used for an advertising display, a book cover, a Christmas card and also a special "own cover" for the half-inch and 1-inch Tourist maps of the
Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...
. At this time the OS covers often showed a solitary but assured male wayfarer studying the route ahead, although for the
Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...
cover of 1932 the man has a lady companion striding along beside him. The Cairngorms cover shows no people at all – to illustrate the Scots pine trees Martin decided to paint what he thought were better specimens on
Southampton Common Southampton Common is a large open space to the north of the city centre of Southampton, England. It is bounded by the districts of Shirley, Bassett, Highfield and Portswood. The area supports a large variety of wildlife, including one of th ...
.


Retirement and appreciation

When
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out the Survey stopped producing new tourist maps and there were financial stringencies. Martin's post was abolished in November 1940 – later that month Southampton was devastated by bombing. The Survey's headquarters were not spared, and the memorial windows were destroyed. Martin retired to
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
to be near his family and where he continued painting for pleasure. He died on 30 September 1977 in a nursing home.
Sven Berlin Sven Paul Berlin (14 September 1911 – 14 December 1999) was an English painter, writer and sculptor. He is now best known for his controversial fictionalised autobiography ''The Dark Monarch'', which was withdrawn just days after publica ...
described the Ordnance Survey maps of the 1920s and 1930s as "old friends who guided you to unknown places" and John Paddy Brown wrote that "after the Second World War, the covers "were bereft of the innovation and imaginative flair which characterised the inter-War years." Despite that, Martin's work had in the inter-war years contributed to the Ordnance Survey maps' iconic status in Britain so that they now have a 95% share of paper map sales. There had been competition from other map making businesses but no other artist bore comparison with his artistic skill and flair.


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Citations


Works cited

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Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Ellis Ordnance Survey English illustrators 20th-century English artists Royal Engineers soldiers Royal Tank Regiment soldiers Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art People educated at King's College School, London 20th-century English male artists