Phyllis Pearsall

The determined cartographer who revolutionized urban navigation by creating London's A-Z Street Atlas

Phyllis Pearsall (1906–1996) undertook an extraordinary feat in 1935: walking 3,000 miles across London to map 23,000 streets from memory. Her A-Z Atlas became the gold standard for urban navigation despite male-dominated publishing industry resistance.

Key innovations included:

• Numbered page-edge indexes for quick reference
• Precise scale (2.5 inches to 1 mile)
• Inclusion of pedestrian pathways and landmarks

Pearsall's achievement was remarkable because:

• She had no formal cartography training
• Worked without modern surveying tools
• Self-funded initial print runs

Her company Geographers' A-Z Map Co. still thrives, and Pearsall became the first female fellow of Royal Geographical Society in 1986. As she quipped: I just wanted to stop people getting lost.