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John Bartholomew and Son Limited is a long-established map publishing company originally based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Around 1888, the firm was renamed The Edinburgh Geographical Institute. The firm was also known as John Bartholomew and Co.

George Bartholomew (January 8th, 1784-October 23rd, 1871, active from 1797) worked as an engraver for Daniel Lizars in Edinburgh. His son, John Bartholomew Senior (1805-April 9th, 1861), began working independently in about 1826, founding the firm that bears his name. Notable work included Black’s General Atlas of 1846.

John Bartholomew Junior (1831-1893) and his son John George Bartholomew (1860-1920) brought the firm to prominence. In particular, J.G. Bartholomew made the firm a publisher of its own works, rather than a producer of maps for other firms. John (Ian) Bartholomew (1890-1962) oversaw the Times Survey Atlas of the World (1922) and later the Mid-Century Edition of the Times Atlas of the World (1955-60).

In 1989, the firm merged with the Glasgow publisher Collins, as part of the multinational HarperCollins Publishers under Rupert Murdoch's News International corporation. A wide range of maps and atlases are still being published today under the imprint of HarperCollins, but the name of Bartholomew survives as the trade name of HarperCollins Reference department's cartographic databases (Collins Bartholomew), based chiefly in Glasgow, but with the British Isles mapping being based in Cheltenham (formerly Geographia Ltd.).

Bartholomew was the only survivor of a number of important map publishers in Scotland, and was notable for a prolific output and variety of maps and atlases for academic, commercial and travel purposes, including the popular 62-sheet Half-Inch to One Mile map series of Great Britain, which transmuted into the 1:100,000 National map series in the 1970s. It was eventually discontinued owing largely to stiff competition from the state-financed Ordnance Survey.

John Bartholomew was credited with having popularised the use of hypsometric tints or layer colouring on maps in which low ground is shown in shades of green and higher ground in shades of brown, then eventually purple and finally white. There was also some suggestion that it was the first to use the name 'Antarctica', and to adopt pink as the colour for the British Empire.

The firm's first major work as a publisher was the The Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Atlas of Scotland (1895), later called the Survey Atlas of Scotland, which was followed by the Survey Atlas of England and Wales (1903).

In 1922 the company was responsible for the production of a major new atlas for The Times newspaper: The Times Survey Atlas of the World. This would later become The Times Comprehensive Atlas, which received a notable boost when a new Millennium edition was published using digital map production technology for the first time. The atlas continues to be a 'must-have' for libraries and better-off homes, on account of its almost unrivalled size combined with a policy of detailed updating.

Another great Bartholomew reference atlas was the well-known Citizen's Atlas of the World, which ran through ten editions (1898-1952). Other notable publications include two volumes of the ambitious Physical Atlas: Meteorology (1899) and Zoogeography (1911), based on the landmark Berghaus Physikalischer Atlas.

John Bartholomew & Son Ltd officially ceased to exist when it was de-registered at Companies House in 1995. A new John Bartholomew & Son Ltd was registered in Scotland in 1998 and it is based at Hardengreen Business Park just outside Edinburgh.

The company was relocated from its offices in Duncan Street, Edinburgh, in 1995 to HarperCollins’ Glasgow offices in Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs. Many long-serving staff left at that time. The Duncan Street office in Edinburgh had been built in 1911 using the imposing Palladian façade of a former Bartholomew family home, Falcon Hall, and this now forms the frontage for a series of up-market flats created from the former offices. The works behind the offices were demolished and replaced by new blocks of flats, which were named by the builder after famous Scottish writers who had no connection with Bartholomews' or cartography.

The departure of the company from Edinburgh after some 170 years in the city was a notable moment in the history of map-making in Scotland, but little was made of the move in the public media, and it was left largely to the initiative of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and George Russell (not an employee) to arrange for the erection of a commemorative plaque with the cooperation of the last John Bartholomew. An unveiling ceremony was attended by the Princess Royal - an indication of the high national and international prestige long held by the company.

The Map Library of the National Library of Scotland (which is located near the former Duncan Street offices) contains the extensive archives of the Bartholomew company, a product of a long and fruitful association between the two organisations. A book, still available from the company at its post-1995 address in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow (Bartholomew - 150 Years), details the history and achievements of Bartholomews’ up to the time of its 150th anniversary in 1976, not very long after the last of the copperplate engravers retired and the company started to pioneer the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and computer-generated mapping for its cartographic publishing and for the selling of map data.

• Collins Bartholomew official website with a brief history of the Bartholomew firm
• View the 1912 Survey Atlas of Scotland at the National Library of Scotland and more information about the Bartholomew family; as well as many other maps of Scotland.
• The Bartholomew Archive (PDF) at the National Library of Scotland has more details about the history of the firm.
• DavidRumsey.com has the landmark 1922 Times Survey Atlas of the World online, as well as many other maps and atlases.