John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins.; superseding . The son of a citizen and Merchant Taylor in London,"Life of John Speed", The Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge, July 1782, p. 348 (Google). he rose from his family occupation to accept the task of drawing together and revising the histories, topographies and maps of the Kingdoms of Great Britain as an exposition of the union of their monarchies in the person of King James I and VI. He accomplished this with remarkable success, with the support and assistance of the leading antiquarian scholars of his generation. He drew upon and improved the shire maps of Christopher Saxton, John Norden and others, being the first to incorporate the hundred-boundaries into them, and he was the surveyor and originator of many of the town or city plans inset within them.A. Baynton-Williams, 'John Speed': Relocated since 17 Sept 2012 at Mapforum.com as "Biography: John Speed", Jan 2022 (www. mapforum.com). His work helped to define early modern concepts of British national identity. His Biblical genealogies were also formally associated with the first edition of the King James Bible. He is among the most famous of English mapmakers.John Speed, eds N. Nicolson and A. Hawkyard, The Counties of Britain: A Tudor Atlas, Thames & Hudson (1989) : Pavilion Books (1992) ; (pbk, 1995) .A full coloured original set of Speed's British maps, with their descriptive texts in the Latin 1616 edition of the Theatre, can be viewed online at gallica (Bibliothèque Nationale Française).
Family and early life According to his daughter Sarah Blackmore, John Speed was born in the Cheshire village of Farndon'John Speed', in T. Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England (J.G., W.L. and W.G., London 1662), p. 184 (Internet Archive). in c. 1551/52.Date calculated from Memorial Inscription formerly in St Giles, Cripplegate. Various families of Speed dwelt in that neighbourhood, but John's relation to them is not precisely established. His father John Speed gained the freedom of the Company of Merchant Taylors of London in April 1556,C. M. Clode, The Early History of the Guild of Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of St John the Baptist, London, 2 vols (Harrison and Sons, London 1888), II: The Lives, p. 332 (Internet Archive). and is supposed to be the same John Speed who married Elizabeth Cheynye at Christchurch, Newgate Street in the City of London in January 1555/56.J.L. Chester, ed. J. Foster, London Marriage Licences 1521-1869 (Bernard Quaritch, London 1887), Col. 1265 (Internet Archive). From this it is inferred that Speed's birth-mother died during his infancy.
By his own account, Speed followed in his father's mercantile business in London,"Life of John Speed", in W. West, The history, topography and directory of Warwickshire (R. Wrightson, Birmingham 1830), pp. 36–37 (Google). and in 1580 he obtained the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company by patrimony.'The loving brother of the Mystery, John Speed', in Clode, Early History of the Merchant Taylors, II, at pp. 332-35 (Internet Archive). He had married Susanna (born c. 1557/58), daughter of Thomas Draper of London, in 1571 or 1572,1572 in Greenfield's pedigree of Speed: variant sources give 1575. Susanna died in 1628 after 57 years of marriage to John, according to her M.I. and began to raise a family.A. Taylor, "A Theatre of Treasures", Cambridge University Library Special Collections, 11 October 2016. Most sources state that they had twelve sons and six daughters, of whom the most famous to reach maturity was John Speed, M.D., who studied at Merchant Taylors' School, London and St John's College, Oxford.B.W. Greenfield, 'Pedigree of Speed of Southampton', in J.J. Howard (ed.), Miscellanea Genealogica Et Heraldica Series 3, vol. 2.i, March 1896 (London: Mitchell and Hughes, 1898), pp. 18–25 (Internet Archive).E. Kell, 'On the Castle and Other Ancient Remains at Southampton', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Ser.1, XXI (1865), pp. 285-93, at pp. 289–290, note 2 (Internet Archive).R. Gough, Anecdotes of British Topography: Or, an Historical Account of What Has Been Done For Illustrating The Topographical Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland (London: W. Richardson and S. Clark, 1768, reprinted in 2014), pp. 184, 448 It appears that the Speed family was fairly well-to-do.Palmer, "The Town of Holt", pp. 421, 425, 429.
Patronage Speed came to the attention of learned individuals,W. Goffart, Historical Atlases: The First Three Hundred Years, 1570–1870 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 54. among whom was Sir Fulke Greville: Greville, "perceiving how his wide soul was stuffed with too narrow an occupation" (as Thomas Fuller has it), thereafter made him an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research:'Speed's description of Warwickshire, section (6)', in W. West, The History, Topography and Directory of Warwickshire, pp. 41-45, at p. 43 (Internet Archive).
In around 1590 Speed was working with the Puritan scholar Hugh Broughton, and developing their work on the genealogies of Jesus Christ. By 1595 he published a map of biblical Canaan,J. Taylor, "John Speed's 'Canaan' and British Travel to Palestine", in D. G. Burke, J. F. Kutsko and P. H. Towner (eds), The King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), pp. 103ff., at pp. vi, 102, 104–119, 121, 159, 182. and in 1598 he presented his maps to Queen Elizabeth. As a reward for these efforts, Elizabeth granted Speed the position of a Waiter (a customs officer):
He was by then a scholar with a highly developed pictorial faculty.W. Goffart, "The First Venture into 'Medieval Cartography" in J. A. Roberts, J. L. Nelson and M. Godden (eds) Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the Occasion of her Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Woodbridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 1997) pp. 57–58. In 1600 he presented three maps of his own making to the Merchant Taylors, who hung them in their Hall or Parlour and made provision for them to be protected by curtains. This gift was remembered in 1601 when Speed sought a lease from the company on a property in Fenchurch Street, a request which failed owing to a higher claim:
In 1598 he contributed a genealogical and heraldic frontispiece to Thomas Speght's edition of the Works of Geffrey Chaucer, reprinted 1602.T. Speght (ed.), The Workes of our Ancient and Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed (Adam Islip for George Bishop, London 1598, 1602), frontis. (Internet Archive).
Career
"I shall not fear to commend in the first place, that famous Man John Speed", wrote Degory Wheare in 1637."Quosinter clarissimum virum Johannem Speedaeum, principe loco, Historiae Britannicae studioso commendare nullus dubitem", etc, in D. Wheare, Relectiones Hyemales, de Ratione et Methodo Legendi Utrasque Historias, etc. pp. 114-15 John George Cotta edition (Tubingen 1700) 1637 Latin original. "He having travell'd over all Great Britain, read diligently all our own Historians, and those of our neighbour Nations, together with a diligent search in the Publick Offices, Rolls, Monuments, and Ancient Writings, or Charters, built up a Splendid and Admired Theatre of the British Empire; which, with great Expedition and Labour, he perfected in XIV. years..." In 1611–1612 the first collated edition of Speed's celebrated atlas and history of Great Britain was published, his son perhaps assisting Speed in preparing surveys of English towns.The Maps of John Speed , Shakespeare's England, 10 August 2010.T.J. Werth, The Fabulous Dark Cloister: Romance in England after the Reformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), p. 49. At the same time, with royal consent, his Sacred Genealogies became incorporated into the first editions of the King James Bible.
In May 1612 Prince Henry asked the Merchant Taylors for his lease on the Company's house in Fenchurch Street to be renewed for Sir Arthur Ingram, as reward for Ingram's good service as Master of the Customs House - which was granted, "to the prejudice" of their brother John Speed.C.M. Clode, The Early History of the Guild of Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of St John the Baptist, London, 2 vols (Harrison and Sons, London 1888), I, p. 333 (Internet Archive). In the 1611 conclusion of his History Speed wrote of "my disease growne dangerous, and life held in suspence."Speed, History, 1st edition (1611) p. 897 His friend Alexander Gill contributed one of the commendatory verses of the work to Speed, "being very sicke", and wrote that his "...cruell symptomes, and these thirteene yeers assay / For thy deare country, doth thy health & strength decay."Speed, History, 1st edition (1611) Front matter. (This dates the commencement of the project to about 1598, as Degory Wheare thought.D. Wheare, The Method and Order of Reading both Civill and Ecclesiasticall Histories (M. Flesher for Charles Brome, London 1685), Part 1, Section XXXI, pp. 164-168; full text at Umich/eebo.) But it was as a very renowned person that in 1614 Speed negotiated for the Merchant Taylors the renewal of their lease of the gardens and "tayntor" grounds (racks for the drying of dyed clothsR. Leech, "Documentary evidence - Temple Fee and the Rack Closes", in K. Colls, 'The Avon Floodplain at Bristol: Excavations at Templar House, Temple Way, in Bristol 2004 and 2005', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society CXXVIII (2010), pp. 73-120 (Society's pdf), at p. 106 p. 35.) in the prebendary lands at Moorfields, London which the Company held from the Chapter of St. Paul's.
In 1615 Speed requested of the Company the renewal and extension of the lease on a garden and tenement, granted by them in 1594 to George Sotherton, which Speed had since held and upon which he had built "a fayer house", but which he had afterwards surrendered to them with nine years of his tenure still outstanding. A new term of 31 years as from Christmas 1614 was approved. Speed then purchased an adjacent garden and plot of taynter to enlarge his own grounds, and in 1618 (after inspection by the Master and Wardens) obtained the Company's permission to annex it and to enclose it with a wall, together with another new lease. As the lease of the premises was later renewed to his heirs, it appears that this house and grounds remained John Speed's residence until his death.
During the same period Speed greatly enlarged his work on the sacred chronologies and genealogies, as A Clowde of Witnesses (1616, 2nd 1620): and after re-issue in various forms, his History and Theatre were newly presented as a Second, revised Edition, in 1623. In his last years, Speed was working on further revisions and adaptations of his atlas in other formats, and on the materials for his world atlas, which took shape as his Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World in 1627. He continued to maintain his annals, though by April 1626 he had become blindJ. Bruce (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles I: 1625-1626 (Longman, Brown, Green, Longman, & Roberts, London 1858) p. 308, no. 72. and suffered from the stone.
Death John Speed died in July 1629 at the age of 77 or 78. He was buried alongside his wife (who had died in the previous year) in London's St Giles-without-Cripplegate church on Fore Street. According to Fuller, his funeral sermon was delivered by Josias Shute. A monument to John Speed was soon afterwards erected on the south side of the chancel of the church. (See Monument and epitaph below.)
Works Biblical genealogies