Periodical geography and geographical correspondence in the Naval Chronicle (1799–1818)

Much of the detail of the transformation in European geography from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century is still shrouded in obscurity. Existing histories of geography, as epitomized in geographical canons, have succeeded in documenting and analysing key protagonists while neglecting the less known figures and groups. This paper invokes the ‘periodical geography’ concept to study the geography of the Naval Chronicle , published during 1799–1818 in London. By viewing the Naval Chronicle as a proto-geographical journal, it opens a new path to approach its geographies which comprise both the experienced and documented geographical phenomena, and the spatial pattern of the communication, dissemination, and calibration of geographical knowledge through correspondence. Analyses on the basis of integral reading reveal that the UK was unequivocally at the centre of this correspondence network, which was also global, and the content was remarkably original in nature. The shifting sectional distribution of the correspondence reflected the ascendance of British hydrography. As such, this study not only fills a critical gap in the history of geography during a period that was overshadowed by the revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, but also points out the progenitor that would shape modern associational geography and its journals as the nineteenth century proceeded. • Detailed study of an early British periodical The Naval Chronicle. • Complements the existing histories of geography of the Enlightenment. • Reveals the characteristics of published geographical correspondences. • Expounds on the development of hydrography in the UK. • Relates The Naval Chronicle to later geographical journals.