![]() A comprehensive list of makers and craftsmen brings together details of men who worked in the industry, their places of work and dates and serial numbers for their instruments. Representative examples of chronometers and deck watches by international makers - from the earliest known to contemporary instruments - are illustrated in both colour and black and white. Other great makers including John Arnold, Thomas Earnshaw, Le Roy, Berthoud, Frodsham, Dent, Kullberg and Tom Mercer are acknowledged for their evolutionary skills. A complete chapter is devoted to John Harrison, rightly described as maker extraordinary, giving a fascinating insight into his herculean efforts to produce a timekeeper that would satisfy all the requirements of the Commissioners of Longitude. The purpose of the chronometer is reviewed largely as a navigational aid for ocean-going vessels, but also for survey, medical and other activities calling for precise time measurement. He wrested the world’s whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a. However, it was not until toward the end of his life that he finally received recognition and a reward from the British Parliament. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the chronometer was one of the foundation stones of the British Empire. Harrison invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. For many years, Tony Mercer, grandson of the most enduring English maker, has studied and collected a huge amount of information about these remarkable instruments that enabled explorers and the Royal Navy to map the world, the Navy to police it, and merchant venturers to sail in relative safety. Over the years that followed, marine chronometers were developed and produced in large numbers. ![]() The sum of GBP20,000 was eventually won by a Yorkshire clockmaking genius, John Harrison, whose first trade was carpentry. In 1714, the British government put up prizes totalling GBP45,000, worth over GBP2 million today. Download the Isolated chronometer instrument and document vector design 2727385 royalty-free Vector from Vecteezy for your project and explore over a. Each nation offered inducements to inventors. It would have to be as accurate on a pitching and tossing sailing ship as a precision pendulum clock on shore. ![]() The best solution seemed to be a clock to calculate how much the Earth had turned and thus accurately to establish longitude. Every ship's capatain had the same problem: at sea, he could not establish his position within hundreds of miles to the east or west. The development of the marine chronometer is irrevocably linked to the intense rivalry and war among the British, French, Dutch and Spanish in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for domination of the seas to protect their trading vessels and expand their empires.
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