The Central London Railway pioneered giving maps like this one to passengers free of charge, something which we now take for granted but which only became viable as printing became cheaper.

The CLR also established a practice of distributing quantities of their official map, again for free, to commercial publishers to be bound into guide books. Presumably it was seen as free advertising, and it became a standard procedure for London Transport and its predeccessors in the first half of the 20th century.

As this is a guide-book issue, information usually found on the verso has been omitted – passengers were requested not to smoke in the lifts and to refrain from spitting, and sensible restrictions were placed on baggage, banning ‘heavy and bulky luggage [which] cannot be carried without inconvenience to Passengers’).

Leboff and Demuth describe this as ‘a new form of map which was to be commonplace until the 1930s... a street layout printed on paper and folded into four, with travel information on the reverse side’.

Condition & Materials

CLR passenger map, sheet size 14.5 x 33 cm, printed in colours, trivial spotting on verso, guide-book issue with blank verso.

References

Leboff and Demuth, ‘No Need to Ask’ p. 33

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Central London Railway 1902 Passenger Map