Samuel Lewis (c. 1782 – 1865) was the editor and publisher of

topographical Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

dictionaries and maps of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until ...

. The aim of the texts was to give in 'a condensed form', a faithful and impartial description of each place. The firm of Samuel Lewis and Co. was based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Samuel Lewis the elder died in 1865. His son of the same name predeceased him in 1862.

''A Topographical Dictionary of England''

This work contains every fact of importance tending to illustrate the local

history of England The territory today known as England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BB ...

. Arranged alphabetically by place (

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

, etc.), it provides a faithful description of all English localities as they existed at the time of first publication (1831), showing exactly where a particular civil parish was located in relation to the nearest town or towns, the

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

, and

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

in which it was situated, its principal landowners, the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

in which it was situated, and—of novel importance—the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

district in which the parish was located and the names of corresponding Catholic parishes. There were six subsequent editions, the last of which (1848-9) was in four volumes and an atlas.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Wales''

First published in 1833, there was a second edition in 1837, a third in 1843, and a fourth (in two volumes and an atlas) in 1849. A topographical dictionary of Wales vol

The title page of the first edition gives an indication of the ambitious scope of the work: The work is in two large volumes with a folding map of Wales and separate county maps facing the entry for each individual county. The 4th edition was transcribed and made available free-to-view online by the University of London.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland''

First published in 1837 in two volumes, with an accompanying atlas, it marked a new and significantly higher standard in such accounts of Ireland. Apart from ''The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland'' published in 1845, it has not been superseded. The first edition is available online. A second edition was published in 1842. In the 1837 preface, the editor noted that: Lewis relied on the information provided by local contributors and on the earlier works published such as Coote's ''Statistical Survey'' (1801), Taylor and Skinner's ''Maps of the Road of Ireland'' (1777), Pigot's ''Trade Directory'' (1824) and other sources. He also used the various parliamentary reports and in particular the census of 1831 and the education returns of the 1820s and early 1830s. Local contributors were given the proof sheets for final comment and revision. The names of places are those in use prior to the publication of the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

Atlas in 1838. Distances are in Irish miles (the

statute mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

is 0.62 of an Irish mile). The dictionary gives a unique picture of Ireland before the Great Famine.

''A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland''

First published in 1846 in two volumes and an atlas.

References

External links

* ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' seventh edition (1848) *
full text
at

British History Online ''British History Online'' is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain and Ireland. It was created and is managed as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, Universit ...

** Scanned volume
1: A–C2: D–K3: L–R4: S–Z
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

''A Topographical Dictionary of Wales''
fourth edition (1849), full text on British History Online.
''A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland''
first edition (1837), full text on Library Ireland.
''A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland''
first edition (1846), full text on British History Online. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Samuel English cartographers 1780s births 1865 deaths 19th-century English writers Publishers (people) from London 19th-century British businesspeople