A Draught of the Coast of New Holland and Parts Adjacent.

A RARITY – 1st EDITION OF THORNTON’S CHART OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN COAST 

First edition, of the first English chart of the Western Australian coast and the first to show the discoveries made by William Dampier at Shark Bay in 1699. (The 2nd edition of this map is identified by the changed imprint from John Thornton to Samuel Thornton.)

The map has a prominent compass rose at centre, numerous rhumb lines and an elegant decorative title. It was
issued in the Third Book of the English Pilot, which was intended
to be the first complete seaman’s guide of the Indian and far eastern waters to
be published in England. It contained detailed sea charts, extensive sailing
directions and coastal profiles. James Cook took a copy of the Third Book on his first voyage of
discovery and after using the chart of Java, wrote ‘a very good Chart in which
everything seems to be very accurately delineated.’

The map records the Dutch discoveries made on the western coast of New Holland including: Hartog 1616, Houtman 1619, van Leeuwin 1620 and De Witt 1628.

An inset map of the survey by William Dampier on the HMS Roebuck in 1699, is positioned at lower right. Dampier had landed at Dirk Hartog Island at the mouth of Shark Bay in July 1699 and in search of fresh water, he followed the Australian coastline north-east, reaching the Dampier Archipelago and then Roebuck Bay. Thornton shows the soundings that Dampier took of the western Australian coastline. Finding no water, he was forced to sail to Timor.

The map also records the first English sighting of the Australian coast and the first recorded European shipwreck off the coast of Western Australia by the Tryall, an East India Company ship under the command of  John Brookes in 1622, that had run aground on the Tryal Rocks (105km off the north-west coast of WA).

The Third Book was to have an extraordinarily complicated publishing history, with ten editions issued between 1703 and 1761. After John Thornton’s death in early 1708, his son Samuel issued an edition of the Third Book in 1711 and following his death in 1715, the Third Book became the property of Mount and Page who issued eight editions between 1716 and 1761. Of the thirty-five charts in the 1703 edition, twenty-seven were reprinted from the original plates, with occasional minor alterations in all editions. All of Thornton’s charts are rare due to their use on board ships.

From, Thornton, The English pilot. The Third Book : describing the sea-coasts, capes, headlands, straits, soundings, sands, shoals, rocks and dangers : the islands, bays, roads, harbours and ports in the oriental navigation.

References NLA p.170, ill.p.170, Tooley 1260, pl.94.