Edward Hasted was born in London in 1732., the son of Edward Hasted of Hawley in Kent. The younger Hasted was to devote over forty years of his life to his passionate interest in the history and geography of Kent. He published the first volume of his "History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent", in Canterbury in 1778. Little did he know, or indeed his subscribers, that the work was not to be completed for another twenty-one years. The second volume appeared in 1782, the third in 1790 and the final volume in 1799. This massive undertaking earned Hasted the accolade of being “the historian of Kent”.

Hasted’s maps of the Hundreds are the first detailed delineation of the county with the exception of Andrew and Drury’s twenty-five sheet map of Kent, published in London in 1769, upon which Hasted largely based his maps.

The term ‘Hundred’ dates back to Anglo-Saxon times and Kent’s peculiar system of land and social administration. The community was made up of ‘tithes’ (a ten household unit), which was responsible to the ‘Hundred Court’ (normally consisting of ten ‘thithes’), and ‘lathes’ (into which the Hundreds were grouped), there being five lathes in Kent. The tithes were responsible for the behaviour of their individual members and the lathes responsible for providing the King with food and men when required.