XIX Century. English

Was appointed Geographer to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and also became a member of parliament for Bodmin. A distinguished mapmaker and seller, he inherited the business from his father and then expanded it with the production of globes and guides.

In 1851, which was the year of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations held in London; he made a gigantic globe, known as Wyld’s Great Globe, with a diameter of 18.39 metres (60 feet 4 inches) which remained on exhibit in Leicester Square for ten years, because of the impossibility of place such a big globe in The Crystal Palace.

The huge globe, one of the big attractions in London during the Great Exhibition, represented the world in relief on the interior face of the globe. The hollow globe could be visited by the public and contained staircases and platforms so that people could view the world in relief on its internal surface.