A Draught of the Coast of New Holland and Parts Adjacent

John Thornton was an English chartmaker, hydrographer, and publisher whose career helped establish a printed English chart tradition at a time when Dutch charts and pilot books still dominated European maritime publishing. He began his career in 1656 as an apprentice to John Burston in the Drapers’ Company, where he trained in manuscript chartmaking, and by the 1670s he was producing printed charts.

Thornton’s career became closely connected with John Seller’s ambitious publishing project, The English Pilot. Seller sought to provide English mariners with printed sea charts and sailing directions that could serve as an alternative to Dutch navigational books. The first two parts of The English Pilot appeared in 1671 and 1675, but Seller’s financial difficulties made the continuation of the project difficult. In 1677 Thornton, William Fisher, and other partners became involved in Seller’s chart-publishing business, helping to sustain and extend the project. The partnership dissolved in 1681, but Thornton retained access to some of Seller’s materials and developed his own chart-publishing business. In 1689 he issued The English Pilot. The Fourth Book, devoted to the English colonies in North America and the West Indies. In 1703 he published The English Pilot. The Third Book … the Oriental Navigation, which provided English mariners with printed charts and sailing directions for the East Indies, Southeast Asia, and related Asian waters. Thornton’s charts in this volume drew on Dutch, Portuguese, French, and English hydrographic knowledge, translating accumulated European maritime information into an English printed format. This chart was published in the 1703 The English Pilot. The Third Book with Thornton’s imprint in the title cartouche: “By John Thornton at the England Scotland and Ireld. in ye Minories London.” After Thornton’s death in 1708 the plate was reissued by his son Samuel Thornton with a changed imprint, and later by Mount & Page with the author’s name and imprint removed.

The chart shows the western coast of New Holland and the adjacent seas of the eastern Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. It records several Dutch encounters with the west coast of Australia, including Dirk Hartog’s landfall in 1616, Frederik de Houtman’s discoveries in 1619, the Leeuwin in 1622, and Gerrit Frederiksz. de Witt’s discoveries in 1628. The label The land of Endracht discovered Anno 1628 by the dutch preserves an error, since Dirk Hartog’s visit to Eendracht Land took place in 1616. Further north the chart includes Java, parts of Sumatra and Borneo, and the islands between New Holland and the East Indies, placing Australia’s western coast within the navigational world of the Dutch and English routes to Asia. The inset, A Draught of Sharks Bay on the Coast of New Holland in the Lattd. of 25° 05′ So. by Capt. Dampier Anno 1701, records William Dampier’s observations at Shark Bay following his 1699 voyage in HMS Roebuck. Dampier’s survey was one of the earliest English printed contributions to the mapping of the Australian coast, adding English hydrographic information to a coastline otherwise known largely through Dutch discoveries.

Within the collection, this chart is closely connected with the related Thornton charts of China, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Bali, and Madura (397, 398, and 399). It also relates to later English hydrographic treatment of Southeast Asian waters, including Samuel Dunn’s chart of the Sunda Strait (419).