Magnificent wall map showing the route and surrounding country of the Grand Trunk Road between Benares and Dehli.

The Great Trunk Road was originally a trade route which was centuries old. It connected the eastern and western boundaries of the Moghul Empire, as well converting into further trade routes beyond Indian borders. In the 1830s, the British East India Company began a program to improve and strengthen the road through the use of metalled construction, in other words, using bitumen or concrete to harden the surface and make it into an all weather road. This program would begin in Calcutta and finish in Kabul.

In the 1830s, the British East India Company began a program to improve and strengthen the road through the use of metalled road construction, in other words, used bitumen or concrete to harden the surface and make it into an all weather road. This program would begin in Calcutta and finish in Kabul. This large map is an overview of the Grand Trunk Road from Benares to Dehli, or its western section. As stated on the map, it was compiled from existing documents held at the Survey of India and was accurate to the year 1857, lithographed in 1858. These were a series of maps compiled by Charles Joseph of smaller sections along the Grand Trunk road. The level of detail is quite astonishing. The scale is eight miles to the inch.

There are two printed signatures on the map, one is A. Scott Waugh, Surveyor General of India at the time while the other is that of his deputy, Henry Thuillier, likely the driving force behind this map as he was also superintendent of revenue surveys.

We have been able to trace three institutional example of this map held at the John R. Borchert map Library in the University of Minnesota, the British Library and the State Library in Berlin. The example in Minnesota is illustrated and is a folding linen backed map bearing a slightly different title. It also differs substantially in the road colouring of the various branches of the Trunk Road. Our example is on paper and has a much more developed network of “red roads”. Our example also bears the line “second edition” on the upper right suggesting it is a later printing although the dating of the lithography, 1858, remains the same. Original colour. [IC2901]