‘A Place for Managing Government Chronometers’: Early Chronometer Service at the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Abstract

This article analyses the early nineteenth-century formation of an institutional framework for the distribution of chronometers in the Royal Navy with particular emphasis on the role played by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. In the early 1820s the observatory was transformed into a storehouse for the majority of government-owned timepieces. This article focuses on the effective collaboration between astronomers, admiralty officials, agents in the naval dockyards and watch makers, in order to provide chronometers to captains and masters to sustain naval operations and foster British navigational developments overall.

Keywords:

• chronometer
• Royal Observatory
• John Pond
• Admiralty
• naval dockyards

In the early nineteenth century the Admiralty sought to solve the challenge of supplying marine chronometers for naval captains. Despite the fact that the chronometer had been gradually accepted among navigators since its invention in the 1760s, seamen in the navy could not obtain it easily primarily due to its high cost. Consequently, after the Napoleonic wars came to an end, the Admiralty established a basic institutional framework for the distribution of chronometers. Central to this was the role played by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich which, with the appointment of Astronomer Royal John Pond as a superintendent of chronometers, began to store the majority of government-owned timepieces. This additional duty concerned George Biddell Airy, Pond's successor, because of the staff becoming overburdened with an ever increasing workload regarding chronometers. Airy left a remark in his autobiography that at the end of Pond's tenure of office in the middle of the 1830s:

In the inferior departments of the Admiralty, especially in the Hydrographic Office … with which I was principally connected, the Observatory was considered rather a place for managing government chronometers than as a place of science.1

Airy's view can be seen as a clear indicator that the chronometer service was one of the most significant functions at Greenwich.

This article analyses the early nineteenth-century formation of the naval chronometer service centred upon the Royal Observatory. While the origin and use of chronometers on board ships of the navy and trading companies have captured considerable attention from historians, few studies have been concerned with the way in which naval captains and masters became enabled to be fully equipped with the timepiece.2 A notable exception is W. E. May's pioneering work which gives a list of chronometers employed on board Royal Navy ships between the 1770s and 1820.3 The present article concentrates on the period between 1820 and 1835 when the demands for chronometers from the navy dramatically increased, and aims to contribute to the historiography of the chronometer by providing an analysis of new data which May did not indicate.4 In what follows, the duties of the staff at the Royal Observatory and Admiralty officials, the competition of chronometers that took place in Greenwich, and the transportation of them to naval bases are investigated. A closer look into these issues will help to demonstrate how the navy succeeded in setting up a scheme through which a chronometer as an indispensable navigational tool was supplied to the fleet.

Transformation of the naval chronometer service

Prior to 1821, the year in which the Royal Observatory began to be used as a ‘storehouse’ of naval chronometers, their distribution to captains was conducted separately by three bodies within and related to the Admiralty: the Board of Longitude, the Navy Board and the Hydrographic Office. Chronometers enable navigators to compare the standard time, based on a given meridian, with the local time of the ship's position. The difference in time could then be calculated into working out the longitude.5 While the enormous capabilities of the devices had already been recognized after their introduction during the voyages of Captain James Cook to the Pacific Ocean in the 1770s, the Admiralty did not possess enough chronometers in the late eighteenth century as they were not yet mass-produced.6 Accordingly, it only provided a limited number of government-owned chronometers to expeditions of particular importance, most notably the voyages of exploration.

The Board of Longitude took an important role in this regard. It was appointed by parliament in 1714 with the aim of encouraging a wide range of innovations in navigational sciences. Apart from activities such as publishing The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemerides and judging the practical use of inventions for the improvement of navigation submitted by the public, the Board lent out chronometers for captains who were undertaking major expeditions to distant and uncharted waters. Between 1770 and 1800, as W. E. May has demonstrated, chronometers were used aboard only 28 voyages by his majesty's ships.7 With respect to the same period, the Board of Longitude's instruments were equipped for 16 of these expeditions. During voyages commanded by well-known captains such as James Cook, Edward Thompson, Arthur Phillip, William Bligh, George Vancouver, William Broughton and Matthew Flinders, for instance, chronometers were utilized in order to ensure safer navigation and collect accurate hydrographical and geographical information.8 They were dispatched to serve the growing commercial and imperial ambitions, as their objectives involved searching for new territory to establish a convict colony, transferring Tahitian breadfruit trees to the Caribbean islands and finding the Northwest Passage.9

One of the principal reasons why naval captains in this period had to rely on chronometers supplied by the Board of Longitude or the Navy Board was affordability. In spite of the sustained efforts of watchmakers, including John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw, to increase production, many captains and masters still could not afford to buy them. Even in the beginning of the early nineteenth century, one naval captain wrote to Earnshaw lamenting the high cost of acquiring chronometers. He stated:

And as from experience, I have great confidence in the superiority and uniform rate of your mechanism, I hope the great advantage and utility in a national point of view of being able to determine the exact situation of our ships of war, will induce government to furnish suitable persons with timekeepers, sextants, instruments and correct charts for that purpose, as it is notorious that a commercial branch of our shipping very much surpass the Navy in the art of navigation, the pay of the officers being inadequate to furnish the means.10

The most striking feature of this quotation is that, first, chronometers were regarded as useful and essential instruments for navigation. Second, the price of obtaining chronometers privately was still sufficiently high enough that navigators in the navy had difficulty accumulating enough money to purchase one. Until the Admiralty begun to gain a considerable number of chronometers and to consistently provide captains with them in the 1820s, it was almost impossible for them to equip all of their vessels.

The alteration of the supervising body of the Royal Observatory by the end of the 1810s represented a crucial moment for the launching of a new chronometer service. Although the observatory had been under the control of the Ordnance Office since its foundation in 1675, the successive Astronomers Royal occasionally depended on the Admiralty and the Treasury with respect to funding throughout the eighteenth century.11 Receiving funds from these governmental departments for extraordinary expenditure to obtain astronomical instruments was vital to enhancing its observational efficiency, for Astronomers Royal had only been paid a relatively small amount of money from the Ordnance Office.12 The shift of superintendence from the Ordnance Office to the Admiralty derived from a proposal made by the Board of Visitors. This advisory committee to the observatory was composed mostly of council members of the Royal Society of London. The Board of Visitors met once a year in Greenwich to consider its operation and to inspect the condition of the instruments.13 In 1816, they discussed what they perceived as irrational administrative operation of the observatory, which appeared to originate from its ambivalent relationship with the Ordnance Office, the Admiralty, and the Treasury.14 Hence the Board recommended to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that the unification of the superintending body be indispensable so as to improve administrative procedures, astronomical efficiency, and navigational science.15 In response to this petition, the Admiralty proposed that the Ordnance Office transfer the management of the observatory; this proposition was accepted in 1818.16

At the end of the 1810s, the distribution of government-owned chronometers was for the most part carried out by the Hydrographic Office which took over the duty from the Navy Board in 1809. In changing the superintendent of naval timekeepers from the Hydrographer to Astronomer Royal, John Wilson Croker, first secretary of the Admiralty, issued a public proclamation in London Gazette in June 1821:

The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, being desirous of increasing the number of chronometers for the use of his Majesty's Navy, and of encouraging the improved manufacture of that important article, do hereby give notice, that a depot for the reception of chronometers is opened at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, where the makers will be permitted to deposit their chronometers, in order to their being tried, and ultimately purchased for the use of the navy, or of being disposed of by the proprietors to private purchasers. And, for further encouragement, their Lordships will purchase, at the end of each year, the chronometer which shall have kept the best time, at the price of 300£, and the second best at the price of 200£, provided that there have been above ten chronometers in the competition … The other chronometers their Lordships may purchase, as they may think proper, at such sums as may be agreed upon with the makers, and their Lordships have reason to expect, that their annual rate of purchase, for some years to come, will be not less than ten chronometers in each year.17

Immediately after this announcement, the Admiralty appointed Pond as superintendent of government chronometers in place of Captain Thomas Hurd (hydrographer).18 In accordance with an order from Croker, Hurd communicated with Pond to acquaint him with the way in which the chronometer management was conducted, enclosing a list of all the timekeepers belonging to the navy as well as expressing his understanding of the tasks as follows.

These instruments when first placed in my care did not exceed 30, but having since increased to 90 their present number they are of course a subject of serious consideration to whoever has the charge thereof not only as being their public accountant but as the recorder of all the different transactions relative to them, such as the expenses of their original purchase and necessary repairs, their various transfers from one officer or ship to another, together with their conveyance to go or from London or Greenwich to the several Sea Ports to which they are destined.19

Hurd's observation clearly demonstrates that the number of chronometers used in the navy gradually increased in the 1810s and early 1820s. In this context a new chronometer service centred upon the Royal Observatory was established in order to manage a significant number of them and create an effective means for their distribution to the naval bases.

Distributing chronometers to the naval dockyards

The official distribution of chronometers in the navy rapidly increased, once the Royal Observatory was established as a ‘storehouse’. Figure 1 shows the total number of naval voyages (1802–34) with chronometers which were officially supplied. From 1821 onwards the line graph is based on an analysis of the chronometer ledgers created by the government, and accordingly what are not included into the data are privately owned chronometers. As can be seen, the use of chronometers grew after the end of the Napoleonic wars, especially between 1821 and 1834. More than 100 voyages in 1831 for instance were undertaken with chronometers on board, whereas up until 1815 there were fewer than 20 voyages per year where the timepiece was utilized. Further, the bar graph illustrates that naval expenditure reached its peak near the end of the wars and was significantly reduced after 1816. It is important to note that the new chronometer service was initiated during a period in which the Admiralty was forced to pursue a coherent policy of retaining large-scale retrenchment. In fact, naval expenditure in the 1820s was approximately 25 per cent of what it was during the period of the wars. In spite of these cutbacks, the Admiralty was determined to prioritize the promotion of an increase in the trade of chronometers and invest in establishing a means for providing them to the fleet. It can be safe to assume that chronometers were regarded by the government as strategically advantageous navigational aids.

Figure 1 The use of chronometers within the navy and naval expenditure, 1802–34. Sources: CUL MS RGO 5/229–31, 38; CUL MS RGO 14; May, ‘How the Chronometer went to sea’, appendix; Mitchell, British Historical Statistics and Hydrographic Department Chronometer Ledgers

The most fundamental duty of the staff at Greenwich was to send, according to an order issued by the Admiralty, a chronometer to captains in the naval dockyards. In the 1820s and 1830s, three officials in the Admiralty and the Hydrographic Office gave orders with regard to chronometers to the staff at the Royal Observatory. John Barrow, the second Secretary of the Admiralty, supervised all business transactions from 1821 onward, and in his absence, John Wilson Croker occasionally corresponded with Pond. Finally, in 1829, Barrow entrusted management of the service to the newly appointed Hydrographer, Francis Beaufort.20 One of the noticeable changes that occurred after Beaufort took the role was his introduction of a printed order template:

Admiralty Office 12 Dec 1829

Sir, The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having been pleased to direct that Captain G. W. Hamilton commanding His Majesty's Ship Druid at Plymouth shall be supplied with a Chronometer, I have to acquaint you therewith. I am, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, F. Beaufort, Hydrographer.21

In tackling the growing number of chronometers for distribution, this letter indicates how Beaufort attempted to simplify and disburse his orders more efficiently. By only rewriting the words underlined such as the date and name of the captain, he was able to issue a large amount of these directions in a relatively short amount of time.

Upon further analysis of these directions, it can also be ascertained that chronometers were primarily distributed to six naval ports: Portsmouth, Devonport, Sheerness, Woolwich, Chatham, and Deptford. The figures presented in table 1 show the number of chronometers that were ordered to be forwarded to each port from Greenwich between 1821 and 1835. As can be seen from the table, the majority of them were destined for the Portsmouth and Devonport (Plymouth) dockyards. In Portsmouth, James Inman, professor of mathematics at the Royal Naval College, played an active part in the chronometer management. Once receiving chronometers sent from Greenwich, he regulated and passed them to captains who were ready to set sail.22 He was further tasked by Pond to send, on a weekly basis, a list of chronometers that were not carried by vessels. The list included a detailed account of the machines; the name of the clockmaker, the serial number, rates of going, whether they were fit or unfit for use, and if they needed repairing.23

Table 1: The Distribution of Chronometers to the Ports, 1821–35

The circumstances surrounding the chronometers provision in Devonport did not differ fundamentally from those in Portsmouth. By sending captains' receipts, those involved in the duty at the port had notified the staff at the Royal Observatory of the fact that chronometers were successfully lent. However, in 1825, an agent of clockmaker Arnold named William Cox in Plymouth suggested that it would be of great value for the navy to establish an official depot for chronometers in the naval dockyard, and further appealed to be nominated as its manager. Until then Cox had managed for several years the timekeepers produced by Arnold and correcting their rates by means of a transit instrument and an astronomical clock. Cox wrote to Croker arguing that chronometers transferred from Greenwich either by way of land or sea were prone to errors caused by vibration.

I have therefore had an excellent opportunity of ascertaining the effects produced on these delicate instruments by the violent concussion on their journey, and am prepared to show, that, in no one instance has a chronometer (subject to the above treatment) been in apt state to be immediately used for the important purpose of ascertaining the longitude … Under such circumstances had they been delivered on board when the ship was upon the point of proceeding to sea, and the weather not allowing of observation, the result might have been most fatal and these could have been a possibility of detecting the error.24

Croker asked Pond of his view on this subject. Pond noted:

I consider Mr Cox's proposal highly deserving their attention, and is in effect similar to what I was about to submit. Should their Lordships establish the same, may I request they will be pleased to give directions that notice be given us previously to any of the transfer to sailing from Deptford to Plymouth. I may be able to send chronometers occasionally.25

Such a favourable acceptance of Pond seems to have stemmed from the fact that transporting some of the timepieces together, rather than just sending one chronometer for a particular vessel, would definitely reduce the workload of his assistants.

As the Admiralty opened a new depot in line with Cox's proposal and appointed him as its manager, the shipment of chronometers in Devonport was almost certainly carried out without any direction from London.26 In addition to the customary way in which a chronometer was delivered to a captain from the Royal Observatory, Beaufort occasionally arranged a vessel with a cargo of chronometers that was sent from Greenwich to Portsmouth and also to Devonport so that the depots could be re-supplied.27 Cox regularly submitted captains' receipts and lists of chronometers in the port to Greenwich, thereby reporting on the condition and accuracy of timepieces under his care.28 Thus, apart from what occurred in London and Greenwich, the management of the naval chronometer service, to a large extent, also improved in the dockyards.

While a few chronometers were employed in most of the routine navigations of the navy, a number of timepieces were specifically equipped on vessels for voyages of exploration, hydrographic survey work, and a project for determining the longitude in the period under consideration. For example, John Ross went to the Arctic with thirteen chronometers supplied by the Admiralty in 1818, and fifteen devices were used in John Tiarks's expedition for the purpose of determining the geographical position of the Island of Madeira in 1822.29 Likewise, William Owen made use of eight timepieces to undertake an extensive hydrographical survey around the African coasts from 1821.30 The Admiralty also allowed men of science to borrow government-issued chronometers for scientific projects, such as a pendulum experiment conducted by George Airy and William Whewell in Cornwall, and John F. W. Herschel's exploration of the interior portion of the Cape of Good Hope.31 These chronometers were for the most part produced by London's clock and watch makers who provided the Admiralty with them particularly through a competition called the Greenwich Trial.

Chronometer service at the Royal Observatory

During Pond's tenure of office the Royal Observatory staffs were engaged in various duties concerning chronometers. Before timekeepers were sent out, the assistants checked their accuracy by comparing them with an astronomical regulator; a clock that was corrected on a daily basis by observing the transit of certain fixed stars. Since the time of John Harrison, who invented the first chronometer, the Royal Observatory had been a place where the accuracy of the timepieces was rigorously calculated and this expertise ensured that the Admiralty placed the institution in charge of maintaining their chronometers. It was also essential for Pond and his chief assistant to submit a weekly report to Barrow and later Beaufort containing information about the condition of the timepieces deposited there. Taking the report into consideration, Barrow and Beaufort would then issue orders to provide a certain number of ships with chronometers. If it was suspected that Pond conveyed false statements in the report, Barrow would promptly send an inquiry to Greenwich.32 In addition to numerous other duties that the Admiralty officials were engaged in, they were particularly concerned with maintaining accurate record keeping related to the use of chronometers, since this was of utmost importance when it came to improving navigation. Finally, the observatory staff diagnosed returned chronometers after voyages in need of maintenance and repair. These investigations examined whether the failure in the timepiece was due to artificial or natural causes.33

Another major function of the Royal Observatory was to organize a contest entitled the Greenwich Trial which was held annually after 1822 and which allowed the Admiralty to choose the best chronometers available. The watch makers were sanctioned to bring one or two timepieces for this competition to the Royal Observatory so that their accuracy could be measured by comparing with an astronomical regulator for several months. As a result of the test varying prizes of £300, £200, or £100 were offered to the makers of the highest quality chronometers. As can be seen in table 2, at least 82 makers joined these trials between 1822 and 1835, and virtually all of them were based in London. The figures in table 2 indicate the quantity of chronometers submitted and the bold numbers represent the winners of the trials or those whose products were purchased. The amount of chronometers entered into the trials gradually increased, finally reaching its peak in 1828 when 78 of them from 38 makers were registered.

Table 2 The Competitors and Winners of the Greenwich Trials, 1822–35

The trials gave makers a financial and reputational incentive to promote their products. Makers had the chance to show off their skills and gain the right to be called a ‘Maker to the Admiralty’ if they won one of the trials. Makers with this title were able to acquire public trust which will have undoubtedly contributed to their sales.34

Figure 2 classifies all the government chronometers, as observed in the chronometer ledgers of the Hydrographic Office, by individual makers for the period from 1821 to 1835. A list of naval chronometers compiled by Thomas Hurd in 1821 tells us that the Admiralty at that time possessed 140 of them that were produced by the hands of only nine makers.35 As a result of the Admiralty's continuous purchasing between 1821 and 1835, the total rose to 356 which were supplied primarily through the trials by more than 50 makers. Therefore one of the most apparent trends of the naval chronometer business in this period was the increasing number of makers that participated with the government in the trade of timepieces.

Figure 2 The number of government chronometers classified by clockmakers, 1821–35.

The dominance of Arnold's company was the most striking characteristic of the naval chronometer market. As can also be seen in figure 2, this firm made over 70 per cent of the chronometers supplied to the navy until 1821. The name of the company then changed to Arnold and Dent after consolidation, and it still continued to supply no fewer than 40 chronometers between 1821 and 1835. As Arnold's biographer, Vaudrey Mercer has pointed out, the company's average production of chronometers per year was approximately 12 in the 1820s, and they successfully increased that number to 60 in the 1830s during which period they were more competitively priced.36 Conversely, while the workshop of Earnshaw gained in prominence for the technical development and production of chronometers by providing the navy with 15 machines until 1821, this maker only supplied six new ones thereafter. Several other eminent makers of that time, including Parkinson and Frodshams, Barraud and French, also competed for a share of the navy's business.

Yet, despite the fact the navy obtained a large number of chronometers through the test, a few problems occurred in the practice of the trial in the 1830s. A particularly serious matter resulted when one maker inscribed his name on another maker's dial plate of a chronometer in one of the contests. According to the regulations, if fraud was suspected, Pond or the Admiralty officials were called upon to review the entries and the clockmakers had to consent to an inspection of their timepieces. An example of this is seen in December of 1833, when Robert and Henry Molyneux, a clockmaker family, informed Beaufort of a dishonest act that took place at the trial:

We have reason to complain that Mr. Webster is not entitled to the third premium in consequence of the chronometer bearing his name having been deposited for trial contrary to the regulations … As it is well known amongst chronometer makers, that the chronometer leaving the name of Webster on the dial plate is the property of Mess. Parkinson and Frodsham who annually deposit for trial no less than eight chronometers, we presume that Mr. Webster if called upon will not comply with the necessary regulations, and in that case we hope that our claim to the premier will be justly established.37

Taking this into consideration, Beaufort not only submitted Molyneux's letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty but also asked Pond to inspect Webster's chronometer no. 679.38 Consequently, Pond discovered the inscription ‘Frodsham’ in the interior of Webster's timepiece. This led to the Admiralty's decision that, instead of awarding Webster, the third premium was given to Molyneux, whose chronometer had originally been in fourth place.39

As a result of that fraudulent attempt, the Admiralty composed a declaration that was to be signed by each applicant in January of 1834. It read:

I do hereby declare, … 2. That the chronometer or chronometers which I have now deposited at the Royal Observatory opposite to the distinguishing number of which I have assigned any name, is, or are, my own construction.40

At the next trial, however, the chronometer awarded the third prize turned out to be one produced by a maker other than the one that was represented in the contest.41 Hence Pond suggested to the Admiralty that any subsequent trials should be suspended.42 In response, even though the Admiralty continued to encourage makers to send chronometers to the observatory with the idea that they could be improved, they decided to put an end to the premiums system. The Admiralty restarted a new scheme of tests under the supervision of Airy in 1840.43

Still, as the quotation below indicates in a letter sent from Barrow to Pond in 1835, the Admiralty officials hoped to provide an incentive for makers to promote the technological advancement:

Their Lordships being, however, still very desirous of advancing to the utmost perfection a machine which is of such value to navigation as a Chronometer, they will occasionally reward any important improvement either in its principle or construction, by which it may be either so simplified as to be materially reduced in cost, without being deteriorated in excellence; or by which a greater uniformity of rate can be ensured, with more certainty, under all varieties of position, motion, and climate.44

The Greenwich Trials allowed clockmakers to establish a beneficial market within the navy. Since a select group of makers monopolized the market until the beginning of the 1820s, the contests gave a wider variety of makers the opportunity to sell their products. Additionally, it can be concluded that the horological industry of London played a vital role in sustaining the quality of navigational practices in the navy. Finally, while some problems did occur in the 1830s, the trials seem to have functioned effectively as an innovative reward system for both the government and the clockmakers.

Conclusion

This article has analysed events relating to the transformation of the British naval chronometer service which took place in the early nineteenth century. The Admiralty officials placed a particular emphasis on the establishment of a new system centred on the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and its emergence coincided with a period when the ministry was forced to reduce naval expenditure. The observatory was by far the most appropriate place to store chronometers as there were resident scientists who understood how to handle these instruments and were capable of regulating and distributing them to various naval ports. These staff members not only hosted the annual trials, but also communicated with clockmakers, agents at the dockyards and naval officers. These various duties were of great importance towards sustaining naval operations and fostering British navigational developments overall. It appears that the basic framework for the distribution of naval chronometers was maintained to a considerable degree well into the late nineteenth century. During that time and despite Airy's critical comments on how burdensome maintaining the chronometer service was set against its observatory's astronomical duties, the service chimed with the important social and practical functions of the observatory as a national institution and aided its public accountability. All things considered, the legacy of the naval chronometer service was of primary significance when it came to the Admiralty's decision to carry on the official support and patronage of the Royal Observatory throughout the nineteenth century.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yuto Ishibashi

Dr Yuto Ishibashi is a post-doctoral research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and visiting researcher at Imperial College London. His research focuses on the social functions of the Royal Observatory Greenwich and their wider impacts in eighteenthand nineteenth-century Britain.

Notes

1 Airy, Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy, 124.

2 Rupert Gould's classical work, The Marine Chronometer, has illuminated the chronometer competition held at the Royal Observatory. An extensive body of literature also exists on eminent clockmakers who supplied their products to the Admiralty. The prime examples are Jagger, Paul Philip Barraud, Mercer, John Arnold and Son and The Frodshams. As for the use of chronometers in the East India Company during the period under consideration, see Arnott, ‘Chronometers on East India Company Ships 1800–1833’.

3 May, ‘How the Chronometer Went to Sea’.

4 Davies, ‘The Life and Death of a Scientific Instrument’.

5 Andrewes, The Quest for Longitude and Howse, Greenwich Time and the Longitude.

6 Howse, ‘Navigation and Astronomy in the Voyages’.

7 May, ‘How the Chronometer Went to Sea’, 656–61.

8 CUL MS RGO 14/13, Papers of the Board of Longitude.

9 For the relationship between science and these voyages of exploration, see Lincoln, Science and Exploration in the Pacific.

10 Letter from W. Layman to T. Earnshaw, 1 May 1803, in Earnshaw, Longitude, 235.

11 For instance, James Bradley, the third Astronomer Royal, in co-operation with the Royal Society of London, received £1,000 from the Admiralty to purchase astronomical instruments in 1749. Minutes of the meeting of the Council of the Royal Society, MSS, 4/6, 331, held at the Royal Society Archives; Rigaud, Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of James Bradley, lxxv.

12 For early years of the Royal Observatory, see Forbes, Greenwich Observatory.

13 For the role of the Board of Visitors, see Laurie, ‘The Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory’.

14 Minutes of the Council of the Royal Society, MSS, 9/115–8.

15 The transcription of the correspondence between the Admiralty, the Treasury, and the Ordnance Office can be found in the papers of George Airy, CUL MS RGO 6/1/33–50.

16 CUL MS RGO 6/1/46, W. Griffin (Office of Ordnance) to J. W. Croker, 8 Apr. 1818.

17 London Gazette, 26 Jun. 1821.

19 CUL MS RGO 5/229/4, Hurd to Pond, 3 Sep. 1821.

18 CUL MS RGO 5/229/2, Croker to Pond, 23 Jul. 1821.

21 CUL MS RGO 5/230/186, Beaufort to Pond, 12 Dec. 1829.

20 For Beaufort's work as a hydrographer and his close relationship with the scientific community, see Friendly, Beaufort of the Admiralty.

22 CUL MS RGO 14/7/14; having participated in the expedition led by Matthew Flinders to New South Wales in the early nineteenth century, Inman had some introductory books on navigation published.

23 CUL MS RGO 5/234, ‘The mean daily rate of the chronometers at the Royal Naval College, for one week, ending Thursday’.

24 CUL MS RGO 5/229/267, Cox to Croker, 27 Mar. 1825.

25 CUL MS RGO 5/233/28, Pond to Croker, 6 May 1825.

26 CUL MS RGO 5/229/304, Croker to Pond, 23 Nov. 1825.

27 CUL MS RGO 5/231/200, Beaufort to Pond, 22 Nov. 1833; Beaufort issued similar orders to the Royal Observatory on several occasions, CUL MS RGO 5/231/244, 253, 261, 290, 311.

28 CUL MS RGO 5/235/98, Cox to Thomas Taylor (an assistant at the Royal Observatory), 25 Mar. 1830.

29 Levere, ‘Chronometers on the Arctic Expeditions of John Ross and William Edward Parry’; Tiarks, ‘A Short Account of Some Observations’.

30 CUL MS RGO 5/29/51–2, Croker to Pond, 6 July 1822; ‘List of Instruments on board HMS Leven belonging to his Majesty’, 5/229/361; Barrow to Pond, 22 Feb. 1827, 5/230/9, and 5/238. Cf. Burrows, Captain Owen of the African Survey.

31 CUL MS RGO 5/229/336, Barrow to Pond, 11 May 1826; Beaufort to Pond, 30 Oct. 1833, CUL MS RGO 5/230/191.

32 For example, CUL MS RGO 5/229/114, Barrow to Pond, 25 Jul. 1823.

33 CUL MS RGO 5/229/197, Barrow to Pond, 30 Jun. 1824.

34 Makers noted the title in their catalogues and public advertisements. Gould, The Marine Chronometer, 372. Good, Victorian Clocks, 9.

35 CUL MS RGO 5/229/4, Hurd to Pond, 3 Sep. 1821.

36 Mercer, John Arnold and Son, 172.

37 CUL MS RGO 5/231/204, Robert and Henry Molyneux to Beaufort, 5 Dec. 1833.

38 CUL MS RGO 5/231/203, Beaufort to Pond, 5 Dec. 1833.

39 CUL MS RGO 5/231/207, Beaufort to Pond, 12 Dec. 1833.

40 CUL MS RGO 5/231/217-8, Barrow to Pond, 13 Jan. 1834.

41 Baker, a clock-maker, registered a chronometer to the Trial which was in effect made by another maker. CUL MS RGO 5/231/264, Beaufort to Pond, 9 Jan. 1935.

42 CUL MS RGO 5/231/265-6, Barrow to Pond, 9 Jan. 1835.

43 For Airy's endeavour to improve the construction and design of timepieces and timekeeping techniques, see Bennett, ‘George Airy and Horology’.

44 CUL MS RGO 6/1/206, Barrow to Pond, 10 Jan. 1835.