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In the first book-length history of the Board of Longitude, a distinguished team of historians of science bring to life one of Georgian Britain's most important scientific institutions. Having developed in the eighteenth century following legislation offering rewards for methods to determine longitude at sea, the Board came to support the work of navigators, instrument makers, clockmakers and surveyors, and assembled the Nautical Almanac. Utilizing the archives and records of the Board, recently digitised by the same team, the authors shed new light on the Board's involvement in colonial projects, Pacific and Arctic exploration, as well as on innovative practitioners whose work would otherwise be lost to history. This is an invaluable guide to science, state and society in Georgian Britain, a period of dramatic industrial and imperial and technological expansion.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Sailing the oceans and seeking longitude before 1714; 3. Launching the eighteenth-century search for the longitude; 4. The early commissioners in transition; 5. The birth of the Board of Longitude; 6. Time trials: the Board of Longitude and the watchmaking trade, 1770-1821; 7. Manufacturing the Nautical Almanac; 8. Managing, communicating and judging longitude after Harrison, 1774-c.1800; 9. A practical institution weighed down by impractical proposals?; 10. What is an observatory? From the metropolis to the Cape; 11. The death and rebirth of the Board of Longitude; Appendix 1: The 1714 Longitude Act; Appendix 2: The Board of Longitude finances; Appendix 3: Payments from the Board of Longitude to John Harrison.
About the author
Alexi Baker operates the History of Science and Technology collection at Yale University's Peabody Museum.
Summary
In the first full-length history of the Board of Longitude, a distinguished team of historians analyse one of Georgian Britain's key scientific institutions. Utilizing the Board's archives, they shed light on state sponsorship of technological innovation, colonial projects and exploration at a time of dramatic industrial and imperial expansion.
Foreword
The first full-length history of the Board of Longitude, bringing to life one of Georgian Britain's key scientific institutions.
