Who was Crunchley, Map & Globemaker Of 81 Fleet Street, London, and when did he stop making maps?
His name was Cruchley, not Crunchley. George Frederick Cruchley to be exact. He lived from 1796 to 1880 and was a map engraver and publisher and globe maker in London. Cruchley learned his trade from Aaron Arrowsmith, a member of a well-known family of English mapmakers, and began to work for himself in 1823. (During the first few years of his new business, the imprint on his maps included the words “From Arrowsmith’s.”) He was located at 38 Ludgate Street until 1834, when he moved to 81 Fleet Street. Cruchley at first concentrated on publishing maps of London. In 1844, he acquired the map stock of John Cary, another well-known mapmaker who had died in 1834, from Cary’s heirs. Cruchley began publishing updated versions of Cary’s maps of England and Wales around 1850, as well as continuing to publish his own maps. Cruchley added useful information on railways, post offices, and telegraph lines to Cary’s original plates and continued to use them until 1876. Cruchley sold his entire map s
