Briefly prior to his demise around 1776, eccentric clock-maker John Harrison declared to have blueprinted the perfect clock, a device that would manage time accurately. His competitors and associates belittled his project as just a hoax and the rambling of a mad, 80-year-old delinquent, but after almost 250 years, Harrison's claim has ultimately been proven accurate.
In the 18th century, Britain was searching for a more accurate way of tracking its explorer ships because at the time, oversights in navigation concluded in fatal shipwrecks. Pressured by several maritime disasters credited from deadly mistakes in calculating a ship's position at the sea, particularly the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, a tragedy that claimed Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and his fleet, the British government created the Board of Longitude in 1714. Before GPS was invented, sailors relied heavily on celestial navigation, and this process required a very accurate clock.
During his professional life, Harrison had tirelessly sought to create a watch that would exceed expectations of the Royal Navy, winning financial rewards worth about $6 million in current U.S. currency. Despite his amazing creations in the field of clocks, Harrison was never acknowledged by his peers and never quite got complete credit.
Close to the time of his death, he just would not give up and designed a pendulum clock he proclaimed would be more precise than any existing clocks in the land, losing less than one second every 100 days. The designs were dismissed and long forgotten until the 1970s, when clock-maker Martin Burgess discovered Harrison's blueprints and assembled clocks from Harrison's design.
Certified by Guinness World Records people, Harrison's declarations were exactly correct — in an enclosed wax-sealed place at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, a trial was conducted at the start of this year, and the clock was displayed to lose just five-eighths of one second in 100 days, making it the world's "most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air." The real-time was measured by a radio-controlled clock receiving the national time signal and the British speaking clock ringing out in the background.
"This does not claim to be a replica of Harrison's clock. It claims to be the use of Harrison's design and concept. It's important to realize his design goes against everything the establishment has claimed is the best throughout history," Jonathan Betts, senior specialist in horology at the Royal Observatory and a member of the Antiquarian Horological Society, said.
His success might be considered overdue, but John Harrison was destined to have the last laugh.
Photo: Karen_O'D | Flickr
