NATHANIEL HILL, 1754

Nathaniel Hill was apprenticed to globe-maker and surveyor Richard Cushee, working from the Globe and Sun at 128 Chancery Lane (Cushee's old address, and the future address of the Newton family firm). Hill was succeeded by his apprentice Thomas Bateman. He in turn was succeeded by John Newton (see lot 125), who, with minimum revisions, used the Hill plates as the basis for his own first pocket globe (dated 1783). Hill's globes appear to have been amongst the more popular of the mid-eighteenth century pocket globes, perhaps because they undercut those offered by the competition: Senex, Martin and Dudley Adams sold theirs for 10 shillings each, whereas Hill's were 7 shillings and 6 pence.