There is a great article that recently came out, written by Grayson Perry, “Are Computers Killing Craft, Not a Chance“, Perry touches on the relevance of craft in the information age… and the relevance of technology for those who create what is often seen as old fashioned crafts.
A nice side of being in this information age, companies like ours can share (and over-share). We can let you into our studio even if you are across the world. But it also means that you – the customer – can put a name and a face to the globe being made very easily. A company like Bellerby & Co – though started by Peter Bellerby who still makes globes daily – can be seen for all the people that actually make the company what it is now. It isn’t just one name and face representing what is a team.
All the big names in globe-making throughout history have been men. The names the stand out in my mind, James Wilson the first American Globemaker, Johann Bernard Bauer and his sons Carl and Peter, Martin Behaim, Weber & Costello, Smith & Son, Luther Replogle, William Rand of Rand McNally & Co, Joslin, John Cary and his brother William, The brothers Johnston, Josiah Holbrook, Felkl & Son, Charles François Delamarche, George F. Cram, Paul Oestergaard of Columbus Globes, and of course Vincenzo Coronelli.
But there would have been female Globemakers. We have seen video and photographs of women in factories… and we know about people like Elizabeth Marriott Bardin. William Bardin began globe production c 1780. In 1790, Thomas Marriott Bardin joined ranks with his father, the firm thereafter traded as W. & T.M. In 1798, the company published their New British Globes, sold through W. & S. Jones. Following T.M. Bardin’s death in 1819, his daughter, Elizabeth Marriott Bardin, continued the family’s globe production with her husband Samuel Sabine until 1832.
** We are not the supreme experts though, share your knowledge on the history of female globe-makers and help put the name to the faces below! Any more pictures or stories to add, send our way on Twitter @Globemakers, Facebook @BellerbyGlobemakers, or email me on jade@bellerbyandco.com so we can share them! **
Great recent articles: “Mapping Out the Hidden World of Women Cartographers”
and “The Hidden Histories of Maps Made By Women: Early North America”
Sent to me online by @noahpearsall
The faces we do know, Sam & Kirsty.
Mary who worked with us for many years ..
And Chloe who also worked with us for many years
Daily life in the studio on Instagram @globemakers
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