MAP OF MAFEKING

Compiled in Surveyor Generals Office Pretoria under the direction of Major H. M. Jackson

Revised edition: Map of Mafeking (540 x640mm) folds into a blue card cover (170 x120mm) depicting the boundary of the Colony, farms, bridges roads and railways dams, military posts, telegraph lines in the area, a good copy.

Photolithographed in Pretoria March 1901 and revised March 1902.

Major Jackson’s Transvaal and Natal Series was initiated by Major H M Jackson, head of the Topographical Section of the FID soon after Pretoria was occupied in June 1900. Also known as the First Transvaal Series, this series consisted of 74 sheets of irregular size covering the whole of the Transvaal (except the extreme north-eastern portion), Natal, Zululand and Swaziland, and part of the former Bechuanaland. The maps were printed in monochrome on linen-backed paper and were, like the Imperial Maps, folded to pocket size for easy usage on horseback. Compiled in a hurry for urgent military use, the maps are of a poor standard and it is uncertain whether they were of much use for military purposes. Although farm names and farm boundaries are shown, the physical topography is merely sketched in and no altitudes are given. According to Jackson himself, these maps were based on a mere patch-work of farm diagrams and as such included much information that was of dubious value.

For further information see: Liebenberg (E.) The cartographic legacy of the Anglo Boer War https://icaci.org/files/documents/ICC_proceedings/ICC2003/Papers/114.pdf