Phyllis Pearsall
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Phyllis Pearsall, MBE (1906–1996) was a distinguished painter and writer, and the creator of the A to Z map of London.
[edit] Biography
She was born Phyllis Isobella Gross in Dulwich, London on 25 September 1906. Her father, Alexander Gross, was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant and her mother was an Irish Italian Roman Catholic suffragette, whose parents disapproved of the match. Phyllis Gross was baptized a Roman Catholic.
She grew up with her older brother, Anthony Gross, CBE, RA, in London but found herself travelling all over Europe from an early age. Her father founded a cartographic company which although successful, eventually went bankrupt for lack of careful management.
Her parents had a very tense marriage which soon dissolved. Her mother re-married but died some years later in an asylum.
Phyllis Gross was educated at the Roedean School, a private boarding school near Brighton, which she had to leave when her father went bankrupt. She then became an English tutor in a small school in Fécamp Brittany. Later, she studied at the Sorbonne, spending her first few months in Paris sleeping rough before moving to a bedsit (small studio) where she met writer Vladimir Nabokov. She started working as a shop assistant in a big department store, selling gloves.
She married Richard Pearsall, an artist friend of her brother's, at the age of 16. They were together for 8 years, travelling in Spain and living in Paris, when she left him in Venice while he was asleep, without telling him anything. She did not remarry.
In 1935, after she had become a portrait painter, she got lost while going to a party. Following a conversation during this party, she conceived the idea of mapping London. The most recent maps available at the time were the 1919 Ordnance Survey maps. The next day she started walking the 3000 miles of the 23000 streets of London, waking up at 5am everyday and not going to bed until after an 18 hours working day.
A year later 10,000 copies of the first A to Z were printed—she did all the proof-reading and design work herself. Then came the problem of selling the map. Finally, WH Smith agreed to take 250 copies of her oeuvre, which she delivered in a wheelbarrow. It was a runaway success.
During the Second World War, while selling maps was forbidden, she worked for the Ministry of Information drawing women in factories.
In 1945, she was involved in a plane crash which left her with life-long scars.
In 1966, she turned her company, the Geographers' A-Z Map Co, into a trust to ensure that it was never bought out, thereby securing the future of her employees.
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' typestyle is a classic piece of typography done by Eric Gill. She designed the type for a few children's encyclopedias and some other titles, though her slant was always toward publishing.
She wrote about her early days in From Bedsitter to Household Name published by her own company. She was awarded an MBE, and in 2005 Southwark Council placed a blue plaque in the house where she was born in Dulwich. Right until her death, she was involved with the company she founded while painting prolifically.
She died of cancer on 28 August 1996, a month before her 90th birthday.
[edit] External links
- Geographers' A-Z Map Co
- Phyllis Pearsall - Map Designer
- BBC News story: From Aaron Hill to Zoffany St
[edit] Sources
- A. to Z. Maps: The Personal Story - From Bedsitter to Household Name, Phyllis Pearsall, Geographers' A-Z Map Co Ltd, 1990, ISBN 0-85039-243-8
- Mrs P's Journey: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Created the A-Z Map, Sarah Hartley, Pocket Books, 2002, ISBN 0-74340-876-4
