Longitude: book review

As this was meant to be a Book review topic...
Let me give my five cents about excellent books on the topic of sea clocks and the solution to the problem of longitude
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1989 " The Clocks and Watches of Captain James Cook "
Howse/Hutchinson (reprint of Antiquarian Horology journal on clocks, watches and telescopes used during Royal Navy time trials)
1995 " Longitude - The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time "
by Dava Sobel ( 184 pages Hardcover, telling the story as a popular account, comes with bookmark with photos of Harrison's clocks )
1996 " The Quest For Longitude "
by William Andrews ( 438 pages hardcover with contributors' subjects of the Longitude Symposium, including George Daniels )
(Photo: MoonwatchUniverse)
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Thanks for sharing 📖 Couple of questions:
On the top row, what are the first and last items?
Are the 3x"The Quest For Longitude" different editions?

Thanks

Top row, from left to right: 📖
ROG " TIME " brochure, published by the Time department of Royal Greenwich Observatory explaining National Time Service & Atomic clock
" Longitude " is the hardcover book by Dava Sobel : 184 pages popular account, comes with bookmark with photos of Harrison's clocks
The Quest For Longitude brochure with contents & prizes of the actual book
" The Time Ball Tower " brochure, explaining the different floors of the tower at coastal town Deal in Kent (I visited time balls worldwide).
Last but not least, the yellow booklet " The Clocks & Watches of Captain James Cook 1769-1969 " (66 pages softcover)
In fact a reprint of Antiquarian Horology journal articles on the clocks, watches and telescopes used during Royal Navy time trials.
The Quest For Longitude books are first 1996 editions (don't know if these were ever reprinted).

Indeed a most interesting story, which eventually lead to serial production of Marine chronometers on both sides of the channel.
I always like how the British & French watchmakers posed proudly with their time keepers... perhaps a bit social media " avant la lettre " with that significant difference that these people accomplished something !
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John Arnold ( 1736 - 1799 )

Well it has been 250 years since 80 year old John Harrison was awarded the last prize money awarded for his solution of the Longitude problem.
An anniversary which can't go unnoticed I believe ? 👎
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The book written by Dava Sobel was a very good read. This thread inspired me to further investigate the TV movie. The “free” Youtube version is lo-quality so… $4 USD for parts 1 & 2 on A-Prime.
Thanks for the recommendation. Can’t wait to screen it.

DVD can be found for a tenner
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By the turn of the 19th century, the two decades long rivalry between John Arnold senior and Thomas Earnshaw lead to practical pocket watch chronometer production. Today, 250 years later, " John Arnold & Son " is in Swiss hands:
http://www.arnoldandson.com/john-arnold

25 years ago, the Time museum in Rockford Illinois was closed and the collection auctioned with the horological items dispersed all over the world although most went to the new museum in Chicago.
Anyway, there was this excellent 1992 catalogue of chronometers in their collection:
The Time Museum Catalogue of Chronometers(366 pages hardcover)
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Although this topic was focused on the English " Longitude Prize ", let's not forget the other sea faring nations offered such a Prize much earlier
1598 : Spain
1610 : the Netherlands
1711 : France
1714 : Great Britian

As we prepare for the " 250th anniversary of the John Harrison's passing (1776-2026) ", trying to keep the "Longitude" topic alive ...
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250 years ago… August 1773 James Cook 2nd voyage
In August 1776, James Cook ships HMS “Resolution” and HMS “Adventure” anchored in Tahiti for a resupply of water & food. During such a prolonged stay on land, Cook focused on his secondary task of checking the time keepers for the Board of Longitude and the Royal Navy.
Cook’s astronomers put up their tent observatory containing a quadrant, a 10 cm refractor and a 10 cm James Short reflector telescope so by the aid of an astronomical clock they found the error of the time keepers and thereby the daily rate of loss or gain on mean time.
HMS Resolution carried Kendall’s K1 chronometer ( a copy of Harrison’s H4) while HMS Adventure carried Arnold n° 1 chronometer. K1 gained 10 seconds/day while Arnold n°1 lost 40 seconds/day.
Calculating longitude by observing Jupiter’s moons (Io in particular) required long focus length refractors so Hadley’s 5 cm speculum mirror reflector seemed a more practical option. Remarkably, astronomer James Bradley had tested both refractor and reflector and found the reflector could see the tiny moon Io emerging from Jupiter's shadow 10 seconds earlier than using the refractor.
Thanks to the flawlessly working Marine chronometers, James Cook described K1 as a trusty friend a never failing guide, he charted many of the South Pacific islands to an accuracy of 5 Km. These maps were still in use in the late 1940s!
By 1776, the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne published his British Nautical Almanac for lunar-distance tables (corrected with Tobias Mayer’s observations) based upon Greenwich time. This lunar angular distance method remained in use until 1850s, when wooden-boxed Marine chronometers had become the precise instrument of choice, while the yearly tables were published up to 1906, when radio time signals took over time distribution.
(Images: NMM Greenwich)

Visit to the Royal Society with John Shelton regulator clock for astronomical observations

As this was meant to be a book topic 📖
Longitude & navigation history at Sea and in the Air

From Sails to Satellites: Origin and Development of Navigational Science
1992 by J. ED Williams (320 pages)

Longitude, the True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
1995 by Dava Sobel (184 pages) *****

Seeking the Longitude and Anglicization of Seafaring
2020 by H-D Woreschk (352 pages)

Longitude, Time and Navigation
2022 by Tom Bensky (415 pages)

Marine chronometers & Timekeepers

The Time Museum Catalogue of Chronometers
1992 by Anthony Randall (366 pages) *****

The Quest for Longitude
1996 by William Andrewes (438 pages = lectures of 1993 Symposium Harvard Univ USA) *****

Marine & Pocket Chronometers – History and Development
1997 by Hans von Bertele (310 pages)

Time Restored: The Harrison timekeepers and RT Gould, the man who knew (almost) everything
2006 by Jonathan Betts (480 pages)

The Marine Chronometer, its History and Development
2013 by Rupert Gould (496 pages = update by Jonathan Betts of Gould’s 1923 edition) *****

Marine Chronometers at Greenwich, a Catalogue of Marine Chronometers at Nat Maritime Museum
2017 by Jonathan Betts (736 pages) *****

Amazing work in wood: https://www.youtube.com/@MrParamount3

Pointing out the most recent book strictly about " Longitude ", the 2022 " Looking For Longitude " by Katy Barrett
Starting from a William Hogarth's print, the book tells the story of longitude on paper, of the discussions, satires, diagrams, engravings, novels, plays, poems and social anxieties that shaped how people understood longitude in 18th century London.
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