Lilian Lancaster (cartographer)

Lilian Lancaster (17 November 1852 – 1 August 1939) was a British actress and humorous cartographer, producing anthropomorphic caricatures of maps of European nations with numerous references to the political changes then affecting continental Europe, together with representations of Garibaldi and Bismarck and other figures of the day.

Aged 15, Lancaster provided twelve colour map caricatures for the illustrated book Geographical Fun: Humorous Outlines of Various Countries (1868).

[2][3] The introduction to the book and the humorous rhyming verse describing the anthropomorphic maps of European countries were provided by 'Aleph', the nom de plume of the City Press journalist and Islington antiquary, Dr. William Harvey [1796-1873].

[2] The drawings were intended to educate as well as entertain, Harvey adding: 'no history no journal can be understood without a knowledge of maps, and good services is done when we make such information more easy and agreeable'!

[5] During 1880 she was touring the United States with this show when the production came to an abrupt end in New York at Wallack's Theatre when Conquest was seriously injured when he fell during his act.

Lilian Lancaster in 1881
Map of Russia by Lancaster (1868) - Russia, here described as a "Country of Eagles, Priests and Bears supreme" takes on the combined symbolic forms of a brown bear standing back to back with Tsar Alexander II (1818-1881)
'England. A Comic Geographical Sketch', map by Lancaster featuring John Bull reading The Times , a recumbent lion, Mr Punch and a Welsh woman in her traditional stove-pipe hat (1878)
A scene from The Grim Goblin at the Grecian Theatre in London - The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News , 30 December 1876, p. 349