The Western sheet of Norie’s very large and very detailed three-sheet map of Southeast Asia. Including the southeastern coast of China to Canton and Hong Kong (as Lantoa), the Malay Peninsula, the Malacca Strait, western Java and Borneo. The chart includes much of the same information as Horsburgh’s of the same area, declaring the “best” sea-routes to and from China, including to New South Wales, depending on the season, and the condition of the vessel. The “Inner Passage being the best for LEAKY VESSELS, during the strength of the S.W. Monsoon” plots a course that hugs the shores of the Malay Peninsula and Cambodia. The islands of the “Sincapour Strait”, including “Sincapour”, in shown in great detail, with numerous depth soundings.
Issued from the Leadenhall Street address, which was purchased with the business of William Heather shortly after his death in 1813, “which were decorated by the trade sign of the Wooden Midshipman, were immortalized by Charles Dickens in ‘Dombey and Son’ as the shop kept by Sol Gills. Norie’s charts and books, particularly the ‘Tables and Epitom’e, made his name well known among seamen for nearly two centuries, a success due to his teaching ability, prolific output, and commercial shrewdness” (Susanna Fisher DNB online).
John William Norie (1722-1843) was an important hydrographer, chartmaker and publisher, a writer on navigation, and publisher of nautical manuals, as well as selling globes and all manner of nautical instruments. He was agent for the sale of Admiralty charts, and chart seller to the East India Company and Trinity House. He was born in London of Scottish parents, and apprenticed to William Heather, a noted chartmaker, as a draughtsman, and his first charts appear under the Heather imprint from 1795 onwards.
In 1813, he bought William Heather’s business, in partnership with Charles Wilson; the partnership lasted until 1840, when Heather sold his share of the business to Wilson and retired. Wilson continued to trade as Norie and Wilson; the firm merged with J. Imray and Son in 1899, and survives to the present as Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson Ltd.
Norie had a prolific output of charts, reissuing Heather’s stock and adding new charts of his own making of all parts of the world, these too many to list. Important publications include his ‘A new and complete epitome of practical navigation’ (1805); ‘A complete pilot for the south coasts of England and Ireland’ (1817); ‘The new Mediterranean pilot, containing sailing directions for the coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal, from Ushant to Gibraltar’ (1817) and ‘Norie’s set of celestial maps for finding the principal stars in the heavens’ (1825).