Phyllis Pearsall, MBE

Despite her innovations in cartography, Pearsall always thought of herself as an artist first. As a young woman in the Twenties and Thirties she moved to Paris to study art. She had little money, but what she did earn came from painting portraits. In 1986 there was an exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Geographical Society.

I really starved in Paris, but I enjoyed it.

When Phyllis Pearsall set out for a party in Belgravia, London, on a rainy night in 1935, she took along the most recent Ordnance Survey map to help her.

But the 16-year-old map failed to stop her getting lost. And by the time she arrived at the gathering, hours late, bedraggled and wet, she resolved to do something about it.

The result one year later was the first edition of the A-Z Atlas and Guide to London and Suburbs.She walked approximately 3,000 miles to check the names of the 23,000 streets of London, waking up at 5am every day, and not going to bed until after an 18-hour working day.

I had to get my information by walking. I would go down one street, find three more and have no idea where I was. House numbers along main roads; I've walked them from start to finish; you won't find them on any other London map.

The map was drawn using the 72 6" Ordnance Survey maps for London dating from 1919 by her father's cartographer, Mr Fountain, updated by visits to the LCC planning offices. In 1936, when her map was complete, she printed 10,000 copies and began contacting bookstores who might sell it. They sold well and within weeks she was taking regular orders to every main railway station in London.

In 1966, she turned her company, the Geographers' A–Z Map Co, into a trust to ensure that it was never bought out. This secured the future of her company and its employees. Through her donation of her shares to the trust, she was able to enshrine her desired standards and behaviours for the company into its statutes.

A respected typographer, although not credited with the design of any typefaces, her arrangement of type is considered one of the most interesting of her age. The 'A to Z' type-style for street names was for decades a conspicuously hand-drawn sans-serif. She designed the type for a few children's encyclopaedias and some other titles, though her slant was always toward publishing.

The A-Z remains one of the most ingenious examples of early 20th century information design.

She was awarded an MBE in The Queen's Birthday Honours of 1986.

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