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Ellis Martin (1881–1977) was an English commercial artist. For most of his working life he was employed by Britain's map making organisation the Ordnance Survey, for which he performed painting, drawing and calligraphy for their map and book covers, and for their advertisements. He was the first person to be employed by the Survey specifically as an illustrator.
He became a professional artist, sometimes hired as a full-time resident artist and at other times freelance, for example for Selfridges. He worked exclusively for the bookshop and news vendor W.H. Smith for six years, often drawing advertisements for the monthly magazine Advertising World which was published and printed by W.H. Smith, and for national newspapers. His work also appeared in The Newsbasket, W.H. Smith's staff magazine.
He married Mabel Verstage in 1910 and they had a daughter, Gentian, who died at an early age in 1940.
A three-man committee under Sir Sydney Oliver was set up to investigate the matter and it recognised that new leisure pursuits such as cycling and motoring would lead to a considerable demand for small-scale maps, such as 1 inch to 1 mile (1:63360). Those that were available from the Ordnance Survey were very poorly distributed with covers that were flimsy and mundane and gave little clue as to what was inside. The committee recommended that, in particular, maps should be widely advertised and they should have robust, attractive covers. However, before any improvements could get underway, war broke out, many staff went into active service, and only war maps were to be produced.
Martin designed the cover for a 1921 official report, one copy of which was sent by the Survey's Central Bureau, led by Harold Winterbotham, to Arthur Hinks, the rather irascible secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. Hinks wrote to Winterbotham "I have admired the cover, but have not yet dipped into the Report".
According to the Survey's 1921 Annual Report, map sales rose considerably to the highest ever in the Survey's history. Close thought this "curious" because the price had been significantly increased and he thought an important aspect was the attractive nature of Martin's covers. Indeed, he gave tribute to Martin's work and submitted some of them to the 1921 Exhibition of British Industrial Art.
One of his earlier ambitious works was for a 20-sheet six-inch map of London. The picture is a night scene looking at the River Thames downstream from Hungerford Bridge. As with all his map covers, the calligraphy and Royal Arms were individually hand drawn. What is often considered Martin's finest work is his 1923 painting for The Middle Thames set at Boulter's Lock at Maidenhead. Browne considers it to be the high point in Ordnance Survey cover art.
One of Martin's paintings of 1932 shows a hiker contemplating the climb up Cleeve Hill. It was used for an advertising display, a book cover, a Christmas card and also a special "own cover" for the half-inch and 1-inch Tourist maps of the [[Cotswolds]].
At this time the OS covers often showed a solitary but assured male wayfarer studying the route ahead, although for the Chiltern Hills cover of 1932 the man has a lady companion striding along beside him. The Cairngorms cover shows no people at all – to illustrate the Scots pine trees Martin decided to paint what he thought were better specimens on Southampton Common.
Sven Berlin described the Ordnance Survey maps of the 1920s and 1930s as "old friends who guided you to unknown places" and John Paddy Browne wrote that "after the Second World War, the covers "were bereft of the innovation and imaginative flair which characterised the inter-War years." Despite that, Martin's work had in the inter-war years contributed to the Ordnance Survey maps' iconic status in Britain so that they now have a 95% share of paper map sales. There had been competition from other map making businesses but no other artist bore comparison with his artistic skill and flair.
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