[ John Martin, English romantic painter. ] Autograph Letter Signed to the antiquary John Britton, regarding a meeting to discuss the 'intended embankments of the Thames' which he himself proposed.

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, with slight damage to gutter from removal from stub. Addressed, with postmark, on reverse of second leaf, to 'John Britton Esqre | 17, Burton St | Burton Crescent'. He asks him and 'any friend who might be interested in the subject' to try to attend 'a meeting at the Guildhall Coffee House' the following day, 'Sir Wm. Heygate in the chair, to consider the necessity of combining a public walk with the intended embankments of the Thames'. According to Martin's entry in the Oxford DNB: 'In the 1820s an expanding London, the new Babylon as it was often referred to, lacked infrastructure to a frightening degree. The Thames, tidal and without river walls, was both water supply and sewer. Cholera broke out in 1830. From the late 1820s onwards Martin devoted much of his time and energy to schemes for metropolitan improvement. He designed embankments to prevent the Thames flooding, to contain sewers and (grander even than anything the builders of his Nineveh had achieved) to accommodate also an underground railway system. [...] None of Martin's schemes was given more than a polite hearing at the time, though in time virtually all of them were realized by others.'