PAP 072

The Poet and The Paupers

XI.072


Surveying and map-making were two skills in which Richard was entirely self-taught. According to Mark Antony, he was “an excellent draughtsman” and this judgment is confirmed by his maps. The earliest of these still in existence, which does not necessarily make it his first, resulted from a commission by Mr. Robert Harris in 1823 to survey and accurately map the lands he owned, principally in Chalvington but overlapping slightly northwards into Chiddingly. Mr. Harris’s lands consisted of seventeen different fields covering just over 88 acres. First the boundaries and corners of each field had to be located precisely by distance and direction; then notes and calculations made in the field had to be transferred into a clear, completed map. Being Richard Lower, he was not content simply with drawing an accurate map. He wanted to produce a work of art. First, then, he coloured each field distinctively. Then, underneath, he listed each field separately with its area in acres, rods and perches, totalled the columns, appended a breakdown into lands held freehold, copyhold and leasehold, and finally enclosed the listing decoratively so that they gave the appearance of having been written on an ancient parchment scroll. To the bottom right of the map he inserted a neat, attractive scale of one-quarter of an inch to the chain and then, in the top left-hand corner, designed a large, highly decorated title cartouche that included even a picture of Mr. Harris’s house as seen from the front. The fact that the map has survived for over a century and a half is a tribute to its pictorial worth and Mr. Harris must have been pleased with the result. How much he paid Richard for it is not known. (In that same year, 1823, Richard had the following commitments: teaching; assessing and collecting Government taxes; working as the Assistant Overseer of the Poor; and serving as Vestry Clerk. He also wrote at least three or four poems and presumably tended his garden, talked to his wife and children, read his quota of books, newspapers and magazines and attended the Independent Chapel at Heathfield. At 41, he had considerable energy. It was also the year in which he broke his pipe and gave up smoking!)

Surveying and map-making were two skills in which Richard was entirely self-taught. According to Mark Antony, he was “an excellent draughtsman” and this judgment is confirmed by his maps. The earliest of these still in existence, which does not necessarily make it his first, resulted from a commission by Mr. Robert Harris in 1823 to survey and accurately map the lands he owned, principally in Chalvington but overlapping slightly northwards into Chiddingly.

Mr. Harris’s lands consisted of seventeen different fields covering just over 88 acres. First the boundaries and corners of each field had to be located precisely by distance and direction; then notes and calculations made in the field had to be transferred into a clear, completed map. Being Richard Lower, he was not content simply with drawing an accurate map. He wanted to produce a work of art. First, then, he coloured each field distinctively. Then, underneath, he listed each field separately with its area in acres, rods and perches, totalled the columns, appended a breakdown into lands held freehold, copyhold and leasehold, and finally enclosed the listing decoratively so that they gave the appearance of having been written on an ancient parchment scroll. To the bottom right of the map he inserted a neat, attractive scale of one-quarter of an inch to the chain and then, in the top left-hand corner, designed a large, highly decorated title cartouche that included even a picture of Mr. Harris’s house as seen from the front. The fact that the map has survived for over a century and a half is a tribute to its pictorial worth and Mr. Harris must have been pleased with the result. How much he paid Richard for it is not known.

(In that same year, 1823, Richard had the following commitments: teaching; assessing and collecting Government taxes; working as the Assistant Overseer of the Poor; and serving as Vestry Clerk. He also wrote at least three or four poems and presumably tended his garden, talked to his wife and children, read his quota of books, newspapers and magazines and attended the Independent Chapel at Heathfield. At 41, he had considerable energy. It was also the year in which he broke his pipe and gave up smoking!)

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