The London Underground is the world’s oldest underground railway. In the decade or so that I’ve been specialising in Tube maps I’ve seen spiralling interest in collecting the cartographic record of 150 years of underground travel. Hundreds of maps have been issued by London Transport, its immediate predecessor the London Passenger Transport Board, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London and the independent companies which ran individual lines in the early years of operation, before the system was unified. Collectors approach these maps from many different standpoints: as examples of London history, transport history or as works of art or industrial design. The interwar period in particular saw designs of the highest calibre commissioned from named artists and designers including MacDonald Gill, Fred Stingemore and, of course, Harry Beck.

As I said, this is now a hugely popular collecting area and the web abounds with excellent sites which detail the chronological development of Underground mapping. Many of the earliest maps, such as the majority issued by the District Railway, simply overprinted the underground lines on large and unwieldy street plans of London. By the Edwardian era the surface detail was being weeded out, reduced to major roads, parks and other landmarks, and a further advance was the colour-coding of lines (a joint branding exercise introduced by the UERL). In the 1920s Gill and Stingemore stripped away the surface topography altogether, even toying with removing the Thames, although the river was swiftly reinstated as a point of reference. Passenger maps were also getting smaller, resulting, after a couple of false starts, in the tri-fold pocket maps which are still given out at stations today. Beck inherited 60 years of r. and d. The cover of the first edition of his contribution to the genre, published in January 1933, even bears the coyly worded disclaimer “A new design for an old map. We should welcome your comments” (LPTB really wasn’t sure it would catch on). All previous maps had been in some sense geographical, even if lines were occasionally distorted due to constraints of space, but Beck’s astonishingly bold and simple idea was to redraw the map as a diagram. It’s possibly the most original piece of cartography of the twentieth century. The legacy for modern Tube passengers is clear enough: Beck is still credited on every map. Beck’s idea has also influenced metro mapping around the world (even if it hasn’t always stuck, in its purest form; witness the controversy over Vignelli’s designs for the New York Subway), he inspired several generations of artists and a whole genre of entertaining pastiches best described as ‘Becksploitation’. The instantly recognisable design, in its many forms, now adorns everything from cushion covers to mouse mats. And that’s the other thing - the development of Underground mapping doesn’t hit the buffers in 1933. Beck himself tinkered with the design for the best part of thirty years (with a brief interlude 1938-41), experimenting with angles, grids, compass roses, ways of showing interchange stations … there is far more to his changes than the fundamental requirement of showing developments on the network.

Well, so much for the background. There’s no space here to go into much more detail - this could easily become a book rather than a blog post. But I generally have a couple of hundred Underground maps in stock, from quirky early advertising pieces (maps printed on postcards, tape-measures, menus …) through to the big quad royal posters designed for display in stations, and a decent selection of the small pocket maps which were tipped into guide books or given away free to passengers. Here are a few of the more unusual ones, including some I’ve only ever seen once.

‘Specials’ were customised to advertise events such as exhibitions, or even private companies. In the late nineteenth-century a series of miniature District Railway maps were issued, adapted for the various exhibitions held at Olympia and often tipped into the accompanying exhibition guides.

I have no idea how popular the 1883 ‘Great International Fisheries Exhibition’ was, but the image of a huge fish over the West End is fabulous:

Detail from an 1892 District Railway map, how to get to the ‘Constantinople’ exhibition at Olympia. Same idea.

'London Electrified’ is a 1908 Franco-British Exhibition postcard, which also celebrates the switch-over from steam. Deep-level lines such as the C&SLR had been electric since their inception in the 1880s, but the District and Metropolitan lines were only electrified 1905-06. Some passengers professed to miss the sparks and smoke on the underground platforms.

Central London Railway Map, 1910, how to get to the Japan-British Exhibition.

Other businesses produced their own promotional maps. Here’s a Public Benefit Boot Company map of London Railways, 1900.

I gather that the giant horse-drawn boot was a real thing …

Below is a 1908 map, with newly colour-coded lines - an early example of joint marketing. Only four of the companies were under the UERL banner at that time, the others were independent. The important thing here is that each line is clearly distinct from its neighbours but given equal weighting (compare and contrast with the CLR map further down). The title is: ‘Map Guide to London, being an invaluable index of how to travel, where to shop, where to stop’. Glorious Edwardian advertising in the borders.

Promotional London Underground map, c. 1910, printed for Spencer, Turner and Boldero Ltd (linen drapers in Lisson Grove).

A relic, but the only example I’ve seen of this Pickford’s Plan of London Electric Railways, 1911. Luggage collected and forwarded in advance - very civilised. Why doesn’t TfL revive this service?

Official Underground maps might also be overprinted. Here’s a January 1933 first edition Beck diagram, overprinted with directions for Peter Robinson’s department store. If one takes into account 'specials’ such as this one, there are about 10 variants of Beck’s diagram within the first year of printing.

This 1924 map ‘How to get to and from London’s football grounds’, complete with pop-up footballer, must also count as a ‘special’ (though whether this initiative came from the London clubs, the FA or the Underground isn’t clear).

Before the Great War the independent railway companies were still concerned with self promotion. Here’s the cover of a standard LER map celebrating the opening of the Hampstead Tube (now part of the Northern Line), 1907.

This map was produced to advertise the opening of the Highgate branch (modern Archway) in 1907.

This map, issued in 1906 by the G.N., Piccadilly & Brompton Electric Railway, emphasises all UERL lines in black:

On the other hand, here’s a Central London Railway map of c. 1902. 'Other Railways’ are represented by thin black lines which are barely visible.

A decade later, and the point is made even more strongly. The Central London Railway has been thickened even further - all other lines are purely incidental.

Mainline railway companies also printed underground maps. This Great Northern Railway Map of London, 1914, would have been picked up by passengers arriving at Finsbury Park or King’s Cross, from destinations such as York.

Even newspapers had a go. This is an early version of the Evening News “Tube Map”, c. 1907, celebrating the new nickname.

Some of the advertising strategies adopted by the railway companies themselves were ingenious. Here are some ephemeral timetables with maps. The upper one, in the form of a tape measure, was issued by the Central London Railway in 1910; the lower one is part of a series issued by the London Underground Electric Railways in 1906-07. It folds out (the train is a tab, secured in the tunnel) to reveal the information.

Even within the ‘standard’ passenger maps, there is plenty of variation. Pre World War One maps by anonymous draughtsmen are sometimes referred to as ‘green maps’ simply because of the colour of the border. So here’s one that’s red:

It was published in 1911. Described on the cover as 'The Excursionist’s Guide’ it advertises the Army Pageant and Festival of Empire. Here’s a selection of the the work of just one designer, MacDonald Gill:

Within a four year period, covering the early 1920s, there was enormous variation. Sometimes it’s immediately obvious (size, colour of border, specific details such as where to alight for the British Empire Exhibition, as on the 1923 example below).

Sometimes it requires more careful examination to spot the differences. Here’s a March 1922 Underground map by Gill, where the Metropolitan line is coloured lilac (there is a variant where it is grey).

Perman’s attractive 1928 map combines elements of Stingemore’s maps (style of the lines, stations and interchanges) with a calligraphic style reminiscent of Gill. It’s main purpose was to promote leisure travel. it shows the full extent of the network and emphasises parks, historic buildings and other places of interest. This version is more unusual, but the heavy overprinting of the mainline interchange stations is somewhat jarring. One can see why it was done - these are the stations where visitors to London were likely to alight - but it’s at odds with the elegance of the rest of the map.

Fred Stingmore produced a wide range of maps too. Here’s his map showing extensions and improvements, July 1930.

Here’s a series of tri-fold firsts. These are the ancestors of the folding maps which are given away free at stations today. Top left is the first tri-fold map, issued in 1911. Beneath is the first card MacDonald Gill map, 1921. To the right are the first of Fred Stingemore’s series of card maps, 1925; a Metropolitan Railway map (How to get to the British Empire Exhibition, 1924) and the first edition of Harry Beck’s famous diagram, issued in January 1933.

This is a 1917 dated poster-sized map (2 x 2.5 feet) of the Underground network, complete with proposed extension to the ‘flying ground’ at Hendon.

To finish with something really grand, here are a couple of quad royal posters, 40 x 50 inches. This one from 1938 shows the proposed Northern Heights extensions, disrupted by the outbreak of war:

All quad royals are scarce. They were pasted up inside stations, pasted over and torn down when superseded; they were seldom given away to the general public and rarely kept. This example from 1946 is the only edition to employ a striking border designed by Captain Shepherd:

And I’d almost forgotten about carriage panels, also created for internal use (display inside tube carriages) and just as scarce. This one was made for the 1926 Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race (visions of Bertram Wooster pinching a Policeman’s helmet afterwards… )

A bit of a quick skip through an enormous subject, but hopefully it conveys a sense of the diversity of Underground mapping.