The Wikipedia entry for George William Frederick of Hanover, better known as King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, is full of details but misses out one key aspect of his life. In addition to concurrently being King, Duke and prince-elect of Brunswick-Lüneburg he was also a map addict and avid map collector.

During the course of his reign between 1760 and 1801, George amassed a collection of around 60,000 maps and views, all of which were housed in a room in Buckingham House (which eventually became Buckingham Palace in 1837) which was right next to his bedroom.

Upon his death, the map collection was bequeathed to the nation and now resides in the British Library and last night a lucky group of people, Alison and myself included, were given a rare chance to get to grips with some of the collection that focused on London. I use the phrase get to grips in the most literal sense. This was no viewing of maps in frames or behind glass. The maps were spread over the table of the library's boardroom and we were encouraged to get really close and do what we so often want to do with an old map but aren't usually allowed to. We got to touch them. We were even allowed to take photos too.

One of the things we loose in today's up to date maps on the web and on our mobiles is how things used to be; the temporal problem of digital maps for want of a better phrase. It's not that there's no data on the past, it just doesn't surface very often.

But sometimes the data does surface and then people make maps of what used to be. Take the British Empire for example. When I went to school in the early 1970's there were maps of the world in almost every class room and they were old maps. Whether down to a lack of funding or as a reminder of what Britain used to be, these maps still showed the extent of the empire, in a pale shade of reddish-pink.

It may have escaped your notice but London is pretty much map mad at the moment. If it's not documentaries on the BBC it's exhibitions of maps at the British Library.

Which seems an apt and fitting time to organise an ad-hoc, impromptu, totally unofficial gathering of latent geographers, geo-wonks, map-nerds, professional cartographers and anyone else who likes maps.

Fully intending to use the week off that I have between leaving my role in the Geo Technologies group of Yahoo! and starting my role as [redacted] with [redacted] in [redacted], I'm going to be going to the Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art exhibition at the British Library in the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd. June 2010, followed by a few geobeers in a local hostelry and a cheeky curry afterwards.