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51 results

Page 1 of 3

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Alexi Baker, Yale Peabody Museum, Richard Dunn, Science Museum, London, Rebekah Higgitt, National Museums Scotland, Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge, Sophie Waring, Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, London
  • Book:
    The Board of Longitude
    Published online:
    11 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    In the first book-length history of the Board of Longitude, a distinguished team of historians of science brings to life one of Georgian Britain’s most important scientific institutions. Having developed in the eighteenth century following legislation that offered 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. The authors use the archives and records of the Board, which they have recently digitised, to shed new light on the Board’s involvement in colonial projects and in 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, imperial and technological expansion.

  • 8 - Managing, Communicating and Judging Longitude after Harrison, 1774–c. 1800

  • Alexi Baker, Yale Peabody Museum, Richard Dunn, Science Museum, London, Rebekah Higgitt, National Museums Scotland, Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge, Sophie Waring, Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, London
  • Book:
    The Board of Longitude
    Published online:
    11 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025, pp 192-209

  • Summary

    This chapter surveys the workings of the British Board of Longitude in the period from the mid-1770s, which saw expenditure and bureaucracy increase. The Longitude Act of 1774 cut rewards and tightened the criteria for success. Managed through a permanent secretary, the Board more resembled an office of state, while personal and patronage relations still played vital roles in its conduct. Both Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne and Joseph Banks exploited the Board to further their own interests in policy and organisation in projects including management of the Nautical Almanac and its computers, supply of instruments to survey voyages, and trials of new kinds of optical glass. The chapter explains how Maskelyne used the Board to extend networks centred on the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, while Banks used his position as a Commissioner of Longitude to mend relations with the Admiralty and extend patronage. Although there were major tensions and conflicts with Maskelyne, Banks was able effectively to make the Board of Longitude an integral component of his system of public administration over the sciences.

  • Epilogue

  • Alexi Baker, Yale Peabody Museum, Richard Dunn, Science Museum, London, Rebekah Higgitt, National Museums Scotland, Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge, Sophie Waring, Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, London
  • Book:
    The Board of Longitude
    Published online:
    11 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025, pp 273-277

  • Summary

    This brief epilogue considers the decades after the dissolution of the British Board of Longitude in 1828 and the ways in which its functions were subsumed by and distributed between other bodies, within the Admiralty and beyond.

The Board of Longitude
  • Science, Innovation and Empire
  • Alexi Baker, Richard Dunn, Rebekah Higgitt, Simon Schaffer, Sophie Waring
  • Published online:
    11 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025
  • 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.

Page 1 of 3