Betts’s New Portable Terrestrial Globe

Impressive 21 inch collapsible terrestrial globe titled: By the Queen’s Royal Letters Patent. Betts’s New Portable Terrestrial Globe. Compiled from the Latest and Best Authorities. London: George Philip & Son, 32 Fleet Street; Liverpool: Philip, Son & Nephew, 45 & 51 South Castle Street. When opened the globe’s circumference is  1200m with a length of 735mm including the spindle.

Betts’s Patent Portable Globe was the invention of John Betts (fl. 1839–c.1863), a London publisher of educational materials, who patented the collapsible umbrella-frame globe mechanism in 1856 (British patent GB 1338) for “Collapsible Geographical Spheres” in 1856. Following Betts’s death, production passed to George Philip & Son, who continued to issue updated editions into the 1920s. The 21-inch format is the largest known size produced; examples in sound condition retaining the original pine box are rare, the majority of surviving globes having suffered silk deterioration through use of the opening mechanism.

Dating Betts’s Portable Globes can be difficult due to no published dates on the globe or box, however the date of c.1875-1878 has been established with the following evidence:

• Terminus post quem of 1875:
  1. Livingstonia mission on Lake Nyasa (established 1875)
  2. Manitoba as a Canadian province (1870)
  3. Unified Germany (1871)
  4. Alaska under US sovereignty (post-1867).
• The terminus ante quem of 1878:
  1. Congress of Berlin (July 1878): the Balkans retain their pre-1878 Ottoman configuration with no independent Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, or Bulgaria shown.
  2. Dakota undivided (1889)

Interestingly, the cartography is uneven across gores, reflecting partial plate updating before printing, it seems that some of the gores of the globe were not updated with the “Latest and Best Authorities”, such as:

1. The Suez Canal (opened 1869) is absent despite Port Said being named
2. Japan retains “Jedo” and “Yeso or Matsmai” in place of their post-1868/69 names.