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8. A Newly Invented Chronological Chart of British Baronets, Patronized by Their Majesties and The Royal Family, Engraved to Accompany and Illustrate a Work on British Family Antiquity By William Playfair, Esqr. 1808: A Complete Set of 9 Charts in Atlas Form to Illustrate the Chronology of British Nobility

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  • Title:
    8. A Newly Invented Chronological Chart of British Baronets, Patronized by Their Majesties and The Royal Family, Engraved to Accompany and Illustrate a Work on British Family Antiquity By William Playfair, Esqr. 1808: A Complete Set of 9 Charts in Atlas Form to Illustrate the Chronology of British Nobility
  • Author: Playfair, William, 1759-1823
  • Subjects: Data Visualization ; Historical
  • Description: This chart showcases the age of English Viscounties and Baronies created since the time of Henry III (reigned 1216-72). The individual timelines are colour-coded to explain the reasons for the original grant of the peerages, with Loyalty or Attachment to the Throne = Green; Military Service by Sea = Orange; Military Service by Land = Red; Parliamentary Importance = Yellow; and Law = Blue. Additionally, there are insets in the lower left that show timelines for ‘Peeresses in the Own Right’ and ‘Countesses and Baronesses’, as well as =for ‘Ecclesiastical Peers, Arch - bishops, Bishops’. Additionally, there are insets in the lower left that show timelines for English ‘Peeresses in the Own Right, Countesses and Baronesses’ and English ‘Ecclesias - tical Peers, Archbishops, Bishops’, as well as, in the lower right, a list of the current mem - bers of the ‘Knights of the Bath’. "Very Rare – a milestone in data visualization, being a complete set of the 9 folio bar charts, bound atlas-form, employed to illustrate the antiquity of every existing noble title in England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland; made by William Playfair, the Scottish genius, “engineer, political economist and scoundrel”, who was the inventor of the bar, line and pie chart media; grand and resplendently coloured works, they are inarguably amongst the most lavish early masterpieces of data visualization. Present here is a complete set of the 9 sumptuously decorative and resplendently coloured folio bar charts made by William Playfair, the brilliant, yet controversial, Scotsman who was a great pioneer of data visualization (and the inventor of the bar chart medium), employed to illustrate the antiquity of every existing noble title in England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Each of the charts, which were engraved in London by J. Smith, horizontally lists families of the British aristocracy, cross referenced against a vertical timeline, with the ages of each noble house charted in lines of brilliant colour, and which are further adorned with decorative cartouches and, in some cases, additional inset charts. The charts are amongst the most lavish of all early works of data visualization. Playfair, an ardent royalist, intended this genealogical work to show the monarchy and nobility to have a heroic character, defending the liberty of the British people, a cause that would be surely aided by the majesty of the charts. The charts were supposedly made to accompany Playfair’s colossal textual history of the aristocracy of the British Isles, British Family Antiquity, Illustrative of the Origin and Progress of the Rank, honours and personal merit of the nobility of the United Kingdom. Accompanied with an Elegant Set of Chronological Charts, 9 volumes (London, 1809-11). However, the charts were published before the text volumes were issued and, as it turned out, seldom appeared with them (especially with all 9 charts). In fact, the complete set of the charts tended to be issued bound as a separate atlas, as here (although few examples in this format survive). They were also issued individually, as exemplified by an example of one of the charts held by the British National Trust at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire: https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/286826.2 When the charts do appear with the text volumes, they tend to be in ratty condition, with the thick paper having been over-folded to fit the binding, whereas here the charts are preserved in folio format, with only a soft centrefold, with full margins and strong engraving impressions – a very unusual find. William Playfair: Pioneer of Data Visualization and Controversial Genius Jack of All Trades William Playfair (1759 – 1823), was a great pioneer of data visualization, being the inventor of line, pie and bar charts, who was also, in the words of the scholars Ian Spence and Howard Wainer, an “engineer, political economist and scoundrel”. A native the Dundee area of Scotland, he was the brother of the prominent architect James Playfair and the esteemed mathematician John Playfair. As a teenager, William became an apprentice of the famed mechanical engineer and inventor James Watts in Birmingham. He subsequently embarked upon an, at times bizarre, series of careers as a statistician, pamphleteer, spy, counterfeiter, con artist, millwright, engineer, draftsman, accountant, inventor, silversmith, merchant, investment broker, economist, translator, publicist, land speculator, convict, banker, editor, blackmailer and journalist. In an event, even his many critics conceded that he was a genius. He notably served as a top-flight British spy in Paris during the French Revolution, whereupon he was present at the Storming of the Bastille. From 1793 to 1795, he masterminded an ingenious and daring operation to mass counterfeit the French currency, leading to its collapse, so greatly hobbling Britain’s archnemesis. He was subsequently involved in the grand land speculation ‘schemes’ (essentially ‘scams’) of the Ohio Company and the Scioto Company, selling land in America. He apparently was not the best con artist, as he was imprisoned for a few years around the turn of the century for debt. Playfair was a prolific writer on subjects that were anchored in statistics, and his eccentric, brilliant mind led him to invent a variety of novel methods for representing them graphically. Of relevance to the present charts was Playfair’s groundbreaking Commercial and Political Atlas (1786), which included the diagram Exports and Imports of Scotland to and from different parts for one Year from Christmas 1780 to Christmas 1781, whereupon he graphed the country’s trade data for a single year on the form of 34 bars, one for each of 17 trading partners, so being the very first bar chart. Playfair’s Statistical Breviary (1801) included the first pie chart, which comparatively showed the portions the Ottoman Empire located in Europe, Asia and Africa. Playfair’s work proved to be immensely influential in Europe and the United States for decades, emulated and refined by many authors." (All notes by Alexander Johnson/Dasa Pahor, 2023)
  • Publisher: J. Smith
  • Creation Date: 1808
  • Language: English
  • Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
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