mapping london’s past

This week I chose to explore the project, Locating London’s Past. The project allows users to search through a variety of records from six different databases in order to map different data types on five contrasting base maps: (1) a GIS compliant version of John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, (2) the 1869-80 Ordinary Survey map, (3) a modern day Google map, (4) a satellite view map, (5) and a blank map. Using different base maps to map the same data allows users to compare an eighteenth-century representation London to the first OS map and to current day Google Maps. Below are pictures of Google Maps, the OS map, and Rocque’s map.

This project is unique because it provides users with empty maps, asking the users to map the data that they find relevant and important. To create my map, I searched through data from the Old Bailey Proceedings data set, which contain accounts of trials that took place at the Old Bailey courthouse. Users can find incredibly detailed and specific records from this data set, as the data types include the defendant’s home/crime location and gender, the victim’s gender, the offense category and subcategory, the verdict category and subcategory, the punishment category and subcategory, and the years that the case was on trial. I chose to look at records on those imprisoned for murder, and then I mapped the locations of these murders. Clicking on one hit (seen below in red) creates a pop-up that provides users with more information about the case and suggests links for further investigation. From here, users can actually add more data on top of the existing map, so I chose to add population densities (seen in green) to view the amount of murders relative to how many people were living in each area.

In Maps are Territories, David Turnbull says “a map is always selective […] the mapmaker determines what is, and equally importantly, what is not included in the representation.” This idea that maps are inherently subjective is especially true for this particular project, because a user’s final map reflects not only what data he or she found important, but also which records and which data sets the workers on this project found important AND what data types recorders in seventeenth and eighteenth century London found important to document in the first place. My final map, therefore, is a culmination of deliberate decisions from 3 parties, all completely separated by time and space, of what should and should not have been included in a representation of London’s past. All possible maps consequently reflect the values and ontologies of governing bodies and archaeologists, of the scholars who built the website, and of the users themselves. In my map pictured above, for example, the darker green areas indicate larger population sizes. The statistics on these population numbers come from the Bills of Mortality, or burial records. Clearly, the workers on this project found old burial records to be a reasonable, or at least the best known measure of population numbers. Maybe this is because, from their perspective, every burial = death, so every death = burial. Or maybe its because, in 17th and 18th century London, every single dead person was buried. But for cultures today that participate in, say, cremation, a death would not automatically = burial, and their differing ontologies would create a disconnect for the project’s mapping abilities.