This Map of the Colony of New South Wales, Exhibiting the Situation and Extent of the Appropriated Lands, including the Counties, Towns, Village Reserve etc. Compiled from Authentic Surveys etc….

First issue of this rare and important, folding cased map of New South Wales by Robert Dixon, extending from Trial Bay (Tryal Bay) in the north, to Moruya in the south, with the land holdings in the colony extensively marked with owners names. At top is an inset of Australia.

Dixon had arrived in Sydney in 1826 to take up the position of assistant surveyor under the Surveyor-General, Lieutenant John Oxley. He was instructed to survey the southern districts of New South Wales as far as the Illawarra. In the following year he set out alone to explore the Burragorang Valley, where he was completely lost for four days and came close to losing his life. Between 1827 and 1829, Dixon undertook numerous surveys in the Blue Mountains region and successfully completed a trigonometrical survey of Mt King George. Two attempts to explore the Grose Valley, the first with Thomas Mitchell and Edmund Lockyer, proved unsuccessful due to the extremely rough countryside. His Blue Mountain surveys enabled Mitchell to lay out a new road to Bathurst. Dixon later surveyed the original site of the town of Goulburn, then known as Goulburn Plains. The town was moved from the banks of the Wollondilly River to its present site in 1833. In 1831, Dixon surveyed the country around Queanbeyan, following the Molonglo River to its junction with the Murrumbidgee and continued west. He then went on to complete surveys of the Upper Hunter and New England districts, before tracing the ranges between the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers. He followed the unexplored Bogan River for sixty-seven miles and later returned to Bathurst, not having sighted any of the high land that he had been sent to investigate.

After completing his comprehensive survey of the colony, he returned to London in 1836, having received two years leave for ‘urgent private business’. While in England he published this map of the colony, using the information he had gained from his official surveys and documents, an act which offended the government and resulted in Mitchell refusing to reinstate him upon his return to Sydney. The map is dedicated to Sir John Barrow Bart who was president of the Royal Geographical Society and who, as a member of the Board of the Admiralty, was a great promoter of Arctic voyages, including those of John Ross, William Parry, James Clark Ross and John Franklin.

Provenance: Ingleton copy with his bookplate.

References; Clancy p.168, ill. Map9.39, Tooley p.249, ill. Pl 183