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John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English carpenter and

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to ...

who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. The problem he solved was considered so important following the

Scilly naval disaster of 1707 The Scilly naval disaster of 1707 was the loss of four warships of a Royal Navy fleet off the Isles of Scilly in severe weather on 22 October 1707. Between 1,400 and 2,000 sailors lost their lives aboard the wrecked vessels, making the incident ...

that the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

offered financial rewards of up to £20,000 (equivalent to £ in ) under the 1714

Longitude Act The Longitude Act 1714 was an Act of Parliament of Great Britain passed in July 1714 at the end of the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Queen Anne. It established the Board of Longitude and offered monetary Bounty (reward), rewards (Longitud ...

. In 1730, Harrison presented his first design, and worked over many years on improved designs, making several advances in time-keeping technology, finally turning to what were called sea watches. Harrison gained support from the Longitude Board in building and testing his designs. Toward the end of his life, he received recognition and a reward from Parliament. Harrison came 39th in the

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's 2002 public poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Early life

John Harrison was born in Foulby in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, the first of five children in his family. His step father worked as a carpenter at the nearby

Nostell Priory Nostell Priory is a Palladian house in Nostell, West Yorkshire, England, near Crofton on the road to Doncaster from Wakefield. It dates from 1733, and was built for the Winn family on the site of a medieval priory. The Priory and its contents ...

estate. A house on the site of what may have been the family home bears a blue plaque. Around 1700, the Harrison family moved to the

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

village of

Barrow upon Humber Barrow upon Humber is a village and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England. The population (including Barrow Hann) at the 2011 census was 3,022. The village is situated near the Humber, about east from Barton-upon-Humber. The small port ...

. Following his father's trade as a carpenter, Harrison built and repaired

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

s in his spare time. Legend has it that at the age of six, while in bed with

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

, he was given a

watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached b ...

to amuse himself and he spent hours listening to it and studying its moving parts. He also had a fascination for

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, eventually becoming choirmaster for Barrow parish church. Longcase clock movement

Harrison built his first longcase clock in 1713, at the age of 20. The mechanism was made entirely of wood. Three of Harrison's early wooden clocks have survived: the first (1713) is in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers' collection previously in the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

in London, and since 2015 on display in the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...

. The second (1715) is also in the Science Museum in London; and the third (1717) is at

in Yorkshire, the face bearing the inscription "John Harrison Barrow". The Nostell example, in the

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions ...

room of this stately home, has a Victorian outer case, which has small glass windows on each side of the movement so that the wooden workings may be inspected. On 30 August 1718, John Harrison married Elizabeth Barret at Barrow-upon-Humber church. After her death in 1726, he married Elizabeth Scott on 23 November 1726, at the same church. In the early 1720s, Harrison was commissioned to make a new

turret clock A turret clock or tower clock is a clock designed to be mounted high in the wall of a building, usually in a clock tower, in public buildings such as churches, university buildings, and town halls. As a public amenity to enable the community to ...

Brocklesby __NOTOC__ Brocklesby is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated south from Habrough, south-west from Immingham, and is located close to the border of both North Lincolnshire and North ...

Park, North Lincolnshire. The clock still works, and like his previous clocks has a wooden movement of oak and

lignum vitae Lignum vitae () is a wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as Pockholz or pokhout, from trees of the genus ''Guaiacum''. The trees are indigenous to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America (e.g: Col ...

. Unlike his early clocks, it incorporates some original features to improve timekeeping, for example the grasshopper escapement. Between 1725 and 1728, John and his brother James, also a skilled joiner, made at least three precision longcase clocks, again with the movements and longcase made of oak and lignum vitae. The grid-iron pendulum was developed during this period. These precision clocks are thought by some to have been the most accurate clocks in the world at the time. Number 1, now in a private collection, belonged to the Time Museum, USA, until the museum closed in 2000 and its collection was dispersed at auction in 2004. Number 2 is in the

Leeds City Museum Leeds City Museum, originally established in 1819, reopened in 2008 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is housed in the former Mechanics' Institute built by Cuthbert Brodrick, in Cookridge Street (now Millennium Square). It is one of nine ...

. It forms the core of a permanent display dedicated to John Harrison's achievements, "John Harrison: The Clockmaker Who Changed the World" and had its official opening on 23 January 2014, the first longitude-related event marking the tercentenary of the Longitude Act. Number 3 is in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers' collection. Harrison was a man of many skills and he used these to systematically improve the performance of the pendulum clock. He invented the gridiron pendulum, consisting of alternating

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

and iron rods assembled so that the thermal expansions and contractions essentially cancel each other out. Another example of his inventive genius was the grasshopper escapement – a control device for the step-by-step release of a clock's driving power. Developed from the

anchor escapement In horology, the anchor escapement is a type of escapement used in pendulum clocks. The escapement is a mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum by giving it a small push each swing, and allows the clock's wheels ...

, it was almost

friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction: *Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of ...

less, requiring no lubrication because the pallets were made from wood. This was an important advantage at a time when lubricants and their degradation were little understood. In his earlier work on sea clocks, Harrison was continually assisted, both financially and in many other ways, by

George Graham George Graham (born 30 November 1944), nicknamed "Stroller", is a Scottish former Association football, football player and manager (association football), manager. In his successful playing career, he made 455 appearances in England's Football ...

, the watchmaker and instrument maker. Harrison was introduced to Graham by the

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The post ...

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, H ...

, who championed Harrison and his work. This support was important to Harrison, as he was supposed to have found it difficult to communicate his ideas in a coherent manner.

Longitude problem

Longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

fixes the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north–south line called the

prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...

. It is given as an

angular measurement In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle. Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles a ...

that ranges from 0° at the prime meridian to +180° eastward and −180° westward. Knowledge of a ship's east–west position was essential when approaching land. After a long voyage, cumulative errors in

dead reckoning In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. ...

frequently led to shipwrecks and a great loss of life. Avoiding such disasters became vital in Harrison's lifetime, in an era when

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

and

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

were increasing dramatically around the world. Many ideas were proposed for how to determine longitude during a sea voyage. Earlier methods attempted to compare local time with the known time at a reference place, such as

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, based on a simple theory that had been first proposed by Gemma Frisius. The methods relied on astronomical observations that were themselves reliant on the predictable nature of the motions of different heavenly bodies. Such methods were problematic because of the difficulty in accurately estimating the time at the reference place. Harrison set out to solve the problem directly, by producing a reliable clock that could keep the time of the reference place. His difficulty was in producing a clock that was not affected by variations in

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various Conversion of units of temperature, temp ...

pressure Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and e ...

or humidity, remained accurate over long time intervals, resisted corrosion in salt air, and was able to function on board a constantly-moving ship. Many scientists, including

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

and Christiaan Huygens, doubted that such a clock could ever be built and favoured other methods for reckoning longitude, such as the method of lunar distances. Huygens ran trials using both a

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

and a spiral

balance spring A balance spring, or hairspring, is a spring attached to the balance wheel in mechanical timepieces. It causes the balance wheel to oscillate with a resonant frequency when the timepiece is running, which controls the speed at which the wheels of ...

clock as methods of determining longitude, with both types producing inconsistent results. Newton observed that "a good watch may serve to keep a reckoning at sea for some days and to know the time of a celestial observation; and for this end a good Jewel may suffice till a better sort of watch can be found out. But when longitude at sea is lost, it cannot be found again by any watch".

First three marine timekeepers

Henry Sully clock with escapement and suspension mechanism

In the 1720s, the English clockmaker Henry Sully invented a marine clock that was designed to determine longitude: this was in the form of a clock with a large

balance wheel A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock. It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a ...

that was vertically mounted on friction rollers and impulsed by a frictional rest Debaufre type

escapement An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands. The impulse action transfers energy ...

. Very unconventionally, the balance

oscillation Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...

s were controlled by a weight at the end of a pivoted horizontal lever attached to the balance by a cord. This solution avoided temperature error due to

thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, volume, and density in response to a change in temperature, usually not including phase transitions. Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kinetic ...

, a problem which affects steel balance springs. Sully's clock kept accurate time only in calm weather, because the balance oscillations were affected by the pitching and rolling of the ship. However his clocks were amongst the first serious attempts to find longitude in this way. Harrison's machines, though much larger, are of similar layout: H3 has a vertically mounted balance wheel and is linked to another wheel of the same size, an arrangement that eliminates problems arising from the ship's motion.Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry
In 1716, Sully presented his first ''Montre de la Mer'' to the French

Académie des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...

A Chronology of Clocks
and in 1726 he published ''Une Horloge inventée et executée par M. Sulli''. Grasshopper-escapement colored

Drawings of Harrison's H4 chronometer of 1761, published in ''The principles of Mr Harrison's time-keeper'', 1767. In 1730, Harrison designed a marine clock to compete for the

Longitude prize The longitude rewards were the system of inducement prizes offered by the British government for a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude at sea. The rewards, established through an Act of Parliament (t ...

and travelled to London, seeking financial assistance. He presented his ideas to

, the

, who in turn referred him to

, the country's foremost clockmaker. Graham must have been impressed by Harrison's ideas, for he loaned him money to build a model of his "Sea clock". As the clock was an attempt to make a seagoing version of his wooden pendulum clocks, which performed exceptionally well, he used wooden wheels, roller pinions and a version of the 'grasshopper' escapement. Instead of a pendulum, he used two dumbbell balances, linked together. It took Harrison five years to build his first sea clock (or H1). He demonstrated it to members of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

who spoke on his behalf to the Board of Longitude. The clock was the first proposal that the Board considered to be worthy of a sea trial. In 1736, Harrison sailed to Lisbon on HMS ''Centurion'' under the command of Captain George Proctor and returned on HMS ''Orford'' after Proctor died at Lisbon on 4 October 1736. The clock lost time on the outward voyage. However, it performed well on the return trip: both the captain and the sailing master of the ''Orford'' praised the design. The master noted that his own calculations had placed the ship sixty miles east of its true landfall which had been correctly predicted by Harrison using H1. This was not the transatlantic voyage demanded by the Board of Longitude, but the Board was impressed enough to grant Harrison £500 for further development. Harrison had moved to London by 1737 and went on to develop H2, a more compact and rugged version. In 1741, after three years of building and two of on-land testing, H2 was ready, but by then

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

was at war with Spain in the

War of Austrian Succession War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

and the mechanism was deemed too important to risk falling into Spanish hands. In any event, Harrison suddenly abandoned all work on this second machine when he discovered a serious design flaw in the concept of the bar balances. He had not recognized that the period of oscillation of the bar balances could be affected by the yawing action of the ship (when the ship turned such as ' coming about' while tacking). It was this that led him to adopt circular balances in the Third Sea Clock (H3). The Board granted him another £500, and while waiting for the war to end, he proceeded to work on H3. Harrison spent seventeen years working on this third 'sea clock', but despite every effort it did not perform exactly as he would have wished. The problem was that, because Harrison did not fully understand the physics behind the springs used to control the balance wheels, the timing of the wheels was not

isochronous A sequence of events is isochronous if the events occur regularly, or at equal time intervals. The term ''isochronous'' is used in several technical contexts, but usually refers to the primary subject maintaining a constant period or interval ( ...

, a characteristic that affected its accuracy. The engineering world was not to fully understand the properties of springs for such applications for another two centuries. Despite this, it had proved a very valuable experiment as much was learned from its construction. Certainly in this machine Harrison left the world two enduring legacies – the

bimetallic strip A bimetallic strip is used to convert a temperature change into mechanical displacement. The strip consists of two strips of different metals which expand at different rates as they are heated. The different expansions force the flat strip to be ...

and the caged roller bearing.

Longitude watches

After steadfastly pursuing various methods during thirty years of experimentation, Harrison found to his surprise that some of the watches made by Graham's successor Thomas Mudge kept time just as accurately as his huge sea clocks. It is possible that Mudge was able to do this after the early 1740s thanks to the availability of the new "Huntsman" or "Crucible" steel produced by

Benjamin Huntsman Benjamin Huntsman (4 June 170420 June 1776) was an English inventor and manufacturer of cast or crucible steel. Biography Huntsman was born the fourth child of William and Mary (née Nainby) Huntsman, a Quaker farming couple, in Epworth, Li ...

sometime in the early 1740s which enabled harder pinions but more importantly, a tougher and more highly polished cylinder escapement to be produced. Harrison then realized that a mere watch after all could be made accurate enough for the task and was a far more practical proposition for use as a marine timekeeper. He proceeded to redesign the concept of the watch as a timekeeping device, basing his design on sound scientific principles.

"Jefferys" watch

He had already in the early 1750s designed a precision watch for his own use, which was made for him by the watchmaker

John Jefferys John Jefferys, is the first game designer to whom a game design can be definitively ascribed (in the Anglophone world). Life He is the designer of the 1759 game ''A Journey Through Europe'', which was based upon ''Game of the Goose''. The game i ...

1752–1753. This watch incorporated a novel frictional rest escapement and was not only the first to have a compensation for temperature variations but also contained the first miniature '' going train fusee'' of Harrison's design which enabled the watch to continue running whilst being wound. These features led to the very successful performance of the "Jefferys" watch, which Harrison incorporated into the design of two new timekeepers which he proposed to build. These were in the form of a large watch and another of a smaller size but of similar pattern. However, only the larger No. 1 (or "H4" as it is sometimes called) watch appears to have ever been finished (See the reference to "H4" below). Aided by some of London's finest workmen, he proceeded to design and make the world's first successful marine timekeeper that allowed a navigator to accurately assess his ship's position in

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

. Importantly, Harrison showed everyone that it could be done by using a watch to calculate longitude. This was to be Harrison's masterpiece – an instrument of beauty, resembling an oversized

pocket watch A pocket watch (or pocketwatch) is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristw ...

from the period. It is engraved with Harrison's signature, marked Number 1 and dated AD 1759.

H4

Harrison's first "sea watch" (now known as H4) is housed in silver pair cases some in diameter. The clock's movement is highly complex for that period, resembling a larger version of the then-current conventional movement. A coiled steel spring inside a brass mainspring barrel provides 30 hours of power. This is covered by the fusee barrel which pulls a chain wrapped around the conically shaped pulley known as the fusee. The fusee is topped by the winding square (requiring separate key). The great wheel attached to the base of this fusee transmits power to the rest of the movement. The fusee contains the maintaining power, a mechanism for keeping the H4 going while being wound. From Gould: In comparison, the verge's escapement has a recoil with a limited balance arc and is sensitive to variations in driving torque. According to a review by H. M. Frodsham of the movement in 1878, H4's escapement had "a good deal of 'set' and not so much recoil, and as a result the impulse came very near to a double chronometer action". The D-shaped pallets of Harrison's escapement are both made of

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

, approx 2mm long with the curved side radius of 0.6 mm; a considerable feat of manufacture at the time. For technical reasons the balance was made much larger than in a conventional watch of the period, 2.2. inches (55.9 mm) in diameter weighing 28 5/8 Troy grains (1.85 g) and the vibrations controlled by a flat spiral steel spring of 3 turns with a long straight tail. The spring is tapered, being thicker at the stud end and tapering toward the collet at the centre. The movement also has centre seconds motion with a sweep seconds hand. The Third Wheel is equipped with internal teeth and has an elaborate bridge similar to the pierced and engraved bridge for the period. It runs at 5 beats (ticks) per second, and is equipped with a tiny 7 1/2 second

remontoire In mechanical horology, a remontoire (from the French ''remonter'', meaning 'to wind') is a small secondary source of power, a weight or spring, which runs the timekeeping mechanism and is itself periodically rewound by the timepiece's main power s ...

. A balance-brake, activated by the position of the fusee, stops the watch half an hour before it is completely run down, in order that the remontoire does not run down also. Temperature compensation is in the form of a 'compensation curb' (or 'Thermometer Kirb' as Harrison called it). This takes the form of a bimetallic strip mounted on the regulating slide, and carrying the curb pins at the free end. During its initial testing, Harrison dispensed with this regulation using the slide, but left its indicating dial or figure piece in place. This first watch took six years to construct, following which the Board of Longitude determined to trial it on a voyage from Portsmouth to Kingston,

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. For this purpose it was placed aboard the 50-gun , which set sail from Portsmouth on 18 November 1761. Harrison, by then 68 years old, sent it on this transatlantic trial in the care of his son,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. The watch was tested before departure by Robertson, Master of the Academy at Portsmouth, who reported that on 6 November 1761 at noon it was 3 seconds slow, having lost 24 seconds in 9 days on mean solar time. The daily rate of the watch was therefore fixed as losing 24/9 seconds per day.Rees's Clocks Watches and Chronometers, 1819–20, David & Charles reprint 1970 When ''Deptford'' reached its destination, after correction for the initial error of 3 seconds and accumulated loss of 3 minutes 36.5 seconds at the daily rate over the 81 days and 5 hours of the voyage, the watch was found to be 5 seconds slow compared to the known longitude of Kingston, corresponding to an error in longitude of 1.25 minutes, or approximately one nautical mile. William Harrison returned aboard the 14-gun , reaching England on 26 March 1762 to report the successful outcome of the experiment. Harrison senior thereupon waited for the £20,000 prize, but the Board were persuaded that the accuracy could have been just luck and demanded another trial. The board were also not convinced that a timekeeper which took six years to construct met the test of practicality required by the

. The Harrisons were outraged and demanded their prize, a matter that eventually worked its way to

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

, which offered £5,000 for the design. The Harrisons refused but were eventually obliged to make another trip to

Bridgetown Bridgetown (UN/LOCODE: BB BGI) is the capital and largest city of Barbados. Formerly The Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael. Bridgetown is sometimes locally referred to as "The Ci ...

on the island of

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

to settle the matter. At the time of this second trial, another method for measuring longitude was ready for testing: the Method of Lunar Distances. The moon moves fast enough, some thirteen degrees a day, to easily measure the movement from day to day. By comparing the angle between the moon and the sun for the day one left for Britain, the "proper position" (how it would appear in

, England, at that specific time) of the moon could be calculated. By comparing this with the angle of the moon over the horizon, the longitude could be calculated. During Harrison's second trial of his 'sea watch' (H4)

Nevil Maskelyne Nevil Maskelyne (; 6 October 1732 – 9 February 1811) was the fifth British Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811. He was the first person to scientifically measure the mass of the planet Earth. He created the ''British Nau ...

was asked to accompany HMS ''Tartar'' and test the Lunar Distances system. Once again the watch proved extremely accurate, keeping time to within 39 seconds, corresponding to an error in the longitude of Bridgetown of less than . Maskelyne's measures were also fairly good, at , but required considerable work and calculation in order to use. At a meeting of the Board in 1765 the results were presented, but they again attributed the accuracy of the measurements to luck. Once again the matter reached Parliament, which offered £10,000 in advance and the other half once he turned over the design to other watchmakers to duplicate. In the meantime Harrison's watch would have to be turned over to the Astronomer Royal for long-term on-land testing. Unfortunately, Nevil Maskelyne had been appointed

on his return from Barbados, and was therefore also placed on the Board of Longitude. He returned a report of the watch that was negative, claiming that its "going rate" (the amount of time it gained or lost per day) was due to inaccuracies cancelling themselves out, and refused to allow it to be factored out when measuring longitude. Consequently, this first Marine Watch of Harrison's failed the needs of the Board despite the fact that it had succeeded in two previous trials. Harrison's Chronometer H5

Harrison began working on his second 'sea watch' (H5) while testing was conducted on the first, which Harrison felt was being held hostage by the Board. After three years he had had enough; Harrison felt "extremely ill used by the gentlemen who I might have expected better treatment from" and decided to enlist the aid of King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

. He obtained an audience with the King, who was extremely annoyed with the Board. King George tested the watch No.2 (H5) himself at the palace and after ten weeks of daily observations between May and July in 1772, found it to be accurate to within one third of one second per day. King George then advised Harrison to petition Parliament for the full prize after threatening to appear in person to dress them down. Finally in 1773, when he was 80 years old, Harrison received a monetary award in the amount of £8,750 from Parliament for his achievements, but he never received the official award (which was never awarded to anyone). He was to survive for just three more years. In total, Harrison received £23,065 for his work on chronometers. He received £4,315 in increments from the Board of Longitude for his work, £10,000 as an interim payment for H4 in 1765 and £8,750 from Parliament in 1773. This gave him a reasonable income for most of his life (equivalent to roughly £450,000 per year in 2007, though all his costs, such as materials and subcontracting work to other horologists, had to come out of this). He became the equivalent of a multi-millionaire (in today's terms) in the final decade of his life. Chronometer 01

Captain James Cook used K1, a copy of H4, on his second and third voyages, having used the lunar distance method on his first voyage. K1 was made by

Larcum Kendall Larcum Kendall (21 September 1719 in Charlbury, Oxfordshire – 22 November 1790 in London) was a British watchmaker. Early life Kendall was born on 21 September 1719 in Charlbury. His father was a mercer and linen draper named Moses K ...

, who had been apprenticed to

. Cook's log is full of praise for the watch and the charts of the southern Pacific Ocean he made with its use were remarkably accurate. K2 was loaned to Lieutenant

William Bligh Vice-Admiral William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. The mutiny on the HMS ''Bounty'' occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command; after being set adrift i ...

, commander of HMS ''Bounty'' but it was retained by

Fletcher Christian Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS ''Bounty'' during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the ''Bounty'', Christian se ...

following the infamous mutiny. It was not recovered from Pitcairn Island until 1808 when it was given to Captain Folger, and then passed through several hands before reaching the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...

in London. Initially, the cost of these chronometers was quite high (roughly 30% of a ship's cost). However, over time, the costs dropped to between £25 and £100 (half a year's to two years' salary for a skilled worker) in the early 19th century. Many historians point to relatively low production volumes over time as evidence that the chronometers were not widely used. However, Landes points out that the chronometers lasted for decades and did not need to be replaced frequently – indeed the number of makers of marine chronometers reduced over time due to the ease in supplying the demand even as the merchant marine expanded.This book has a table showing that at the peak just prior to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

, Britain's

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

had almost 1000 ships. By 1840, this number had reduced to only 200. Even though the navy only officially equipped their vessels with chronometers after 1825, this shows that the number of chronometers required by the navy was shrinking in the early 19th century. Mörzer Bruyns identifies a recession starting around 1857 that depressed shipping and the need for chronometers. Also, many merchant mariners would make do with a deck chronometer at half the price. These were not as accurate as the boxed marine chronometer but were adequate for many. While the Lunar Distances method would complement and rival the marine chronometer initially, the chronometer would overtake it in the 19th century. The more accurate Harrison timekeeping device led to the much-needed precise calculation of

, making the device a fundamental key to the modern age. Following Harrison, the marine timekeeper was reinvented yet again by John Arnold who while basing his design on Harrison's most important principles, at the same time simplified it enough for him to produce equally accurate but far less costly marine chronometers in quantity from around 1783. Nonetheless, for many years even towards the end of the 18th century, chronometers were expensive rarities, as their adoption and use proceeded slowly due to the high expense of precision manufacturing. The expiry of Arnold's patents at the end of the 1790s enabled many other watchmakers including

Thomas Earnshaw Thomas Earnshaw (4 February 1749 in Ashton-under-Lyne – 1 March 1829 in London) was an English watchmaker who, following John Arnold's earlier work, further simplified the process of marine chronometer production, making them available to the ...

to produce chronometers in greater quantities at less cost even than those of Arnold. By the early 19th century, navigation at sea without one was considered unwise to unthinkable. Using a chronometer to aid

simply saved lives and ships – the insurance industry, self-interest, and common sense did the rest in making the device a universal tool of maritime trade.

Death and memorials

Harrison died on 24 March 1776, at the age of eighty-two, just shy of his eighty-third birthday. He was buried in the graveyard of St John's Church, Hampstead, in north

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, along with his second wife Elizabeth and later their son William. His tomb was restored in 1879 by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, even though Harrison had never been a member of the Company. Harrison's last home was 12, Red Lion Square, in the

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its root ...

district of London. There is a

plaque Plaque may refer to: Commemorations or awards * Commemorative plaque, a plate or tablet fixed to a wall to mark an event, person, etc. * Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I * Pl ...

dedicated to Harrison on the wall of Summit House, a 1925 modernist office block, on the south side of the square. A memorial tablet to Harrison was unveiled in

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

on 24 March 2006, finally recognising him as a worthy companion to his friend

and

Thomas Tompion Thomas Tompion, FRS (1639–1713) was an English clockmaker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the "Father of English Clockmaking". Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watc ...

, 'The Father of English Watchmaking', who are both buried in the Abbey. The memorial shows a meridian line (line of constant longitude) in two metals to highlight Harrison's most widespread invention, the bimetallic strip thermometer. The strip is engraved with its own longitude of 0 degrees, 7 minutes and 35 seconds West. The

Corpus Clock The Corpus Clock, also known as the Grasshopper clock, is a large sculptural clock at street level on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, in the United Kingdom, at the junction of Bene't Street ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, unveiled in 2008, is a homage by the designer to Harrison's work but is of an electromechanical design. In appearance it features Harrison's grasshopper escapement, the 'pallet frame' being sculpted to resemble an actual grasshopper. This is the clock's defining feature. In 2014,

Northern Rail Northern Rail, branded as Northern, was an English train operating company owned by Serco-Abellio that operated the Northern Rail franchise from 2004 until 2016. It was the primary passenger train operator in Northern England, and operated th ...

named diesel railcar 153316 as the ''John 'Longitude' Harrison''. On 3 April 2018,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

celebrated his 325th birthday by making a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

for its homepage. In February 2020, a bronze statue of John Harrison was unveiled in

. The statue was created by sculptor Marcus Cornish. Johnharrisonstatue

Subsequent history

After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Harrison's timepieces were rediscovered at the Royal Greenwich Observatory by retired naval officer Lieutenant Commander Rupert T. Gould. The timepieces were in a highly decrepit state and Gould spent many years documenting, repairing and restoring them, without compensation for his efforts. Gould was the first to designate the timepieces from H1 to H5, initially calling them No.1 to No.5. Unfortunately, Gould made modifications and repairs that would not pass today's standards of good museum conservation practice, although most Harrison scholars give Gould credit for having ensured that the historical artifacts survived as working mechanisms to the present time. Gould wrote ''The Marine Chronometer'' published in 1923, which covered the history of chronometers from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

through to the 1920s, and which included detailed descriptions of Harrison's work and the subsequent evolution of the chronometer. The book remains the authoritative work on the marine chronometer. Today the restored H1, H2, H3 and H4 timepieces can be seen on display in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. H1, H2 and H3 still work: H4 is kept in a stopped state because, unlike the first three, it requires oil for lubrication and so will degrade as it runs. H5 is owned by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of London, and was previously on display at the

Clockmakers' Museum The Clockmakers’ Museum in London, England, is believed to be the oldest collection specifically of clocks and watches in the world. The collection belongs to and is administered by the Clockmakers’ Charity, affiliated to the Worshipful Com ...

in the Guildhall, London, as part of the Company's collection; since 2015 the collection has been displayed in the Science Museum, London. In the final years of his life, John Harrison wrote about his research into musical tuning and manufacturing methods for bells. His tuning system, (a

meantone Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

system derived from pi), is described in his pamphlet ''A Description Concerning Such Mechanism ... (CSM)''. This system challenged the traditional view that

harmonics A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the '' fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', ...

occur at integer

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

ratios and in consequence all music using this tuning produces low frequency beating. In 2002, Harrison's last manuscript, ''A true and short, but full Account of the Foundation of Musick, or, as principally therein, of the Existence of the Natural Notes of Melody'', was rediscovered in the US

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

. His theories on the mathematics of bell manufacturing (using "Radical Numbers") are yet to be clearly understood. Martin Burgess - Clock B at the Royal Observatory - Greenwich

Martin Burgess - Clock B at the Royal Observatory - Greenwich

One of the controversial claims of his last years was that of being able to build a land clock more accurate than any competing design. Specifically, he claimed to have designed a clock capable of keeping accurate time to within one second over a span of 100 days. At the time, such publications as ''The London Review of English and Foreign Literature'' ridiculed Harrison for what was considered an outlandish claim. Harrison drew a design but never built such a clock himself, but in 1970 Martin Burgess, a Harrison expert and himself a clockmaker, studied the plans and endeavored to build the timepiece as drawn. He built two versions, dubbed Clock A and Clock B. Clock A became the Gurney Clock which was given to the city of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

in 1975, while Clock B lay unfinished in his workshop for decades until it was acquired in 2009 by Donald Saff. The completed Clock B was submitted to the

for further study. It was found that Clock B could potentially meet Harrison's original claim, so the clock's design was carefully checked and adjusted. Finally, over a 100-day period from 6 January to 17 April 2015, Clock B was secured in a transparent case in the Royal Observatory and left to run untouched, apart from regular winding. Upon completion of the run, the clock was measured to have lost only 5/8 of a second, meaning Harrison's design was fundamentally sound. If we ignore the fact that this clock uses materials such as

duraluminium Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of ''Dürener'' and ''aluminium''. Its use as a trad ...

and

invar Invar, also known generically as FeNi36 (64FeNi in the US), is a nickel–iron alloy notable for its uniquely low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE or α). The name ''Invar'' comes from the word ''invariable'', referring to its relative lac ...

unavailable to Harrison, had it been built in 1762, the date of Harrison's testing of his H4, and run continuously since then without correction, it would now ( ) be slow by just minutes and seconds.

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

has declared the Martin Burgess' Clock B the "most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air."

In literature, television, drama and music

In 1995, inspired by a

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

symposium on the longitude problem organized by the

National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors The National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc. (NAWCC) is a nonprofit association of people who share a passion for collecting watches and clocks and studying horology (the art and science of time and timekeeping). The NAWCC's global m ...

Dava Sobel Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include ''Longitude'', about English clockmaker John Harrison, and '' Galileo's Daughter'', about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste, and ...

wrote a book on Harrison's work. '' Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time'' became the first popular bestseller on the subject of

horology Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clo ...

. ''The Illustrated Longitude'', in which Sobel's text was accompanied by 180 images selected by William J. H. Andrewes, appeared in 1998. The book was dramatised for UK television by Charles Sturridge in a Granada Productions 4 episode series for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

in 1999, under the title ''

''. It was broadcast in the US later that same year by co-producer A&E. The production starred Michael Gambon as Harrison and

Jeremy Irons Jeremy John Irons (; born 19 September 1948) is an English actor and activist. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969 and has appeared in many West End theatre ...

as Gould. Sobel's book was also the basis for a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

NOVA episode entitled ''Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude''. Harrison's marine time-keepers were an essential part of the plot in the 1996 Christmas special of long-running British

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

Only Fools And Horses ''Only Fools and Horses....'' is a British television sitcom created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas ...

'', entitled "

Time on Our Hands "Time on Our Hands" is an episode of the BBC sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses''. First screened on 29 December 1996, it was the final episode of that year's Christmas trilogy and the fifteenth Christmas special overall. It attracted a television ...

". The plot concerns the discovery and subsequent sale at auction of Harrison's Lesser Watch H6. The fictional watch was auctioned off at Sotheby's for £6.2 million. The song "John Harrison's Hands", written by Brian McNeill and Dick Gaughan, appeared on the 2001 album ''Outlaws & Dreamers''. The song has also been covered by Steve Knightley, appearing on his album 2011 ''Live in Somerset''. It was further covered by the British band

Show of Hands Show of Hands is an English acoustic roots/ folk duo formed in 1986 by singer-songwriter Steve Knightley (guitars, mandolin, mandocello, cuatro) and composer and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer (vocals, guitars, violin, viola, mandolin, mando ...

and appears on their 2016 album ''The Long Way Home''. In 1998, British composer

Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' T ...

wrote the piano piece "Harrison's clocks" that contains musical depictions of Harrison's various clocks. Composer Peter Graham's piece ''Harrison's Dream'' is about Harrison's forty-year quest to produce an accurate clock. Graham worked simultaneously on the brass band and wind band versions of the piece, which received their first performances just four months apart, in October 2000 and February 2001 respectively.

Works

References

External links

John Harrison and the Longitude Problem, at the National Maritime Museum sitePBS Nova Online: ''Lost at Sea, the Search for Longitude''John 'Longitude' Harrison and musical tuningExcerpt from: Time Restored: The Story of the Harrison Timekeepers and R.T. Gould, 'The Man who Knew (almost) Everything'
* ttp://www.thepirateking.com/bios/harrison_john.htm Excellent accounting of John Harrison and his H1, H2, H3 Achievementsbr>Harrison's precision pendulum-clock No. 2, 1727, on the BBC's "A History of the World" website
* ttp://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-H-17809 Account of John Harrison and his chronometerat

Cambridge Digital Library The Cambridge Digital Library is a project operated by the Cambridge University Library designed to make items from the unique and distinctive collections of Cambridge University Library available online. The project was initially funded by a donat ...

Building an Impossible Clock
Shayla Love, 19 Jan 2016, ''The Atlantic'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, John 1693 births 1776 deaths 17th-century English people 18th-century English people Burials at St John-at-Hampstead English designers English clockmakers English inventors English watchmakers (people) People from Barrow upon Humber People from Foulby Engineers from Yorkshire Recipients of the Copley Medal British scientific instrument makers