Bacon's Large Scale Atlas of London and Suburbs. With an Alphabetical Index of Over 20,000 Street Names. With Additional Road Maps of the Home Counties &tc. [HIRAM WALKER & SONS Ltd. PUBS' DISTRIBUTION MASTER COPY].

Royal quarto. Complete with title-page printed in red & black, Contents, Alphabetical list of districts, and all 59 double-page colour lithograph maps as follows: 7 maps of the Home Counties (I-VII); 17 Special maps and plans of London (VIII-XXIV); one Index map; and 34 four-inch scale maps (sheets 1-34). Plus an alphabetical index to over 20,000 streets. HARDCOVER, bound in the original publisher's navy blue full cloth, large decorative lettering in gilt to cover, gilt spine, sewn cloth inner hinges, thumb index; extremities rubbed, chafed, the fold-out general map bit creased and edge-frayed, few repairs to verso of maps, splits at centre fold of few maps. In a very good condition. ~ On first paste-down is the ink stamp "Hiram Walker & Sons. Ltd. / 27 Cockspur Street S.W.1." The address is then crossed out and changed in contemporary hand to "170/3 Piccadilly W.1" and the date "1926" is added by different hand. Hiram Walker started producing spirits in 1858, pioneering numerous distillation and manufacturing processes that are now industry standards. Harry Clifford Hatch (1884-1946), a Canadian businessman, acquired Hiram Walker & Sons in 1926. He merged it with Gooderham & Worts of Toronto to form Hiram Walker Gooderham & Worts Ltd., one of the largest whisky distillers in the world. The Scotland subsidiaries distributed spirits to pubs all over England. Almost all of the 4-inch scale maps in this copy were used to meticulously mark the location of every single London establishment that was on the distribution list of the distillery. Each enterprise is identified by unique number in a very neat hand in black or red ink; there are probably more than a thousand such entries. Names of some establishments are added in pencil by a different hand. Extremely rare document of the time, mapping London's pub sector and hotel and catering industry of the first half of the 20th Century. Y-1.…