These richly illustrated talks provided a fascinating opportunity to reflect on the significance of these often beautiful and intricate objects in shrinking distance and creating understanding in the age of Enlightenment. This panel brought together Peter Barber, the leading authority on George III’s map collection and former head of the Map Collection at the British Library, and Dr Max Edelson, a leading authority on the mapping of colonial America and a pioneer of its digital interpretation, to discuss the place of maps in the exercise of rule and authority in the eighteenth century.

Yet George had a keen interest in his dominions, and this found expression not least in his interest in maps, of which he became an avid collector and a patron to mapmakers. One such person was King George III – a monarch who, though in many respects defined in his reign by his relations with both North America and Europe, was unusual amongst his contemporary rulers in never leaving his own kingdom (and even England) at any point in his reign. Maps came to play a crucial role in confronting those challenges, transferring knowledge and opportunities across considerable distances, not least to those who never traversed them themselves. The Hanoverian British monarchy presided over a vast array of dominions spread across the globe, each presenting its own challenges to those who needed either to understand or to govern and exploit the different regions. Mapping the Georgian world: global power & maps in the reign of George III

Chaired by Professor Arthur Burns, Academic Director of the Georgian Papers Programme at King’s, with Dr Max Edling as commentator. Main speakers: Peter Barber OBE (former head of Map Collections at the British Library) Dr Max Edelson (University of Virginia, USA, and creator of the digital visualization platform MapScholar). Edmund J Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, King’s College London

Reign of kings map commands