MARINE TIMEKEEPERS USED BY
COOK, PHILLIP AND FLINDERS
Prior to Cook’s second voyage
At November 1771, as the Board of Longitude was making its preparations for equipping then Lieutenant James Cook's second expedition to the South Seas, the development of marine timekeepers in England can be summarised as follows :
· John Harrison's fourth timekeeper (H4) had been tried at sea in 1761 and 1764 and was now the property of the Board. It had been tried at Greenwich in 1766 and was put in Larcum Kendall's hands for copying in 1767. In 1770, H4 and Kendall's copy, Kl, were sent to be tested together at Greenwich.
· Harrison's fifth timekeeper (H5) was nearly complete.
· Kendall's first timekeeper (K1), the copy of H4, had been on trial at Greenwich since March 1770.
· Kendall's second timekeeper (K2) was almost complete but not adjusted.
· John Arnold had shown one chronometer to the Board in May 1770 and had been asked to make another for trial. On 24 January 1771, Arnold took a timekeeper down to Portsmouth and placed it on board Rear Admiral Sir Robert Harland's ship, the Northumberland, shortly sailing to the East Indies. Harland also bought a timekeeper from Arnold for himself, saying in a later letter to the Earl of Sandwich for if your Lordship had not sent me one timekeeper I should never have thought of buying another; and I heartily thank your Lordship for it. Another record indicates that it was Harland's private timekeeper that was the first one shown to the Board.
· Arnold had produced another timekeeper for the Board in March 1771, probably the same one that was at Greenwich in November.
At their meeting on 28 November 1771, the Board decided to send Kendall’s K1 with Cook and asked William Harrison, John’s son, whether H5 could also be sent on one of the ships. Harrison declined because the trial would take up too much time. At this same meeting, Arnold was asked to make four more watches by the end of January 1772.
So when Cook sailed in July 1772, Kendall's No. 1 and Arnold's No. 3 timekeepers went with him on Resolution, and Arnold's Nos. 1 and 2 timekeepers went in Tobias Furneaux's Adventure. Furthermore, it was laid down that the most important aim of the voyage after the primary geographical one, was to try out these watches as a means of finding the longitude at sea.
On Cook's second voyage, K1 performed impeccably, the Arnold timekeepers not so well. For the third voyage therefore, Cook again took K1 in his own ship the Resolution, while K3 went in the Discovery.
Larcum Kendall’s timekeepers
In 1766, to prove whether or not H4's success on its trials was not coincidence, the Board of Longitude decided that an exact copy should be made and trialled. On 24 May 1766, therefore, Larcum Kendall was contracted to make a copy for £450, half to be paid immediately, and half on completion. Harrison’s H4 was delivered to him in London in May or June 1767. Very elaborate arrangements were made for its transport from Greenwich to London by river. H4 was sent in a barge belonging to the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, escorted by Dr Maskelyne the Astronomer Royal, Captain Smith of the Royal Hospital, Mr Ibbetson the Secretary of the Board of Longitude, and Kendall himself.
K1 was completed and shown to the Board at its meeting on 13 May 1769. It was then returned to Kendall as he said it required further adjustment. Kendall delivered K1 once again on 13 January 1770, and the Board ordered it to be examined by a committee consisting of the watchmakers Thomas Mudge and William Matthews, the instrument maker John Bird, and the Cambridge astronomers the Reverend’s John Michell and William Ludlam.
K1 easily passed this examination, the Board's minutes of 3 March read :
…the said Watch Machine [K1] was completely finished in a good and workmanlike manner and agrees in all essential circumstances with that made by the said John Harrison [H4] and with all such improvements as were mentioned to them by Mr. Harrison….
That he [Kendall] has now fully completed his engagement with this Board and that therefore the remainder of the money stipulated to be paid to him for making the said Watch Machine (being £225) be paid to him as soon as conveniently maybe; And that a further sum of £50 be given to him in consideration of his extraordinary trouble and loss of time in adjusting the said Watch Machine (which was upwards of nine months in his possession for that purpose after his first producing of it to the Board) and in taking it, and also that made by the said Mr. Harrison, to pieces that their parts might be more readily compared; and putting them together again.
The Board understood from Kendall that Harrison's son attended during the whole examination and, from Mr West, that he had afterwards called upon him and declared himself exceedingly satisfied with Kendall’s workmanship which, in some respects, he acknowledged to be superior to that of his father.
After this generous compliment from William Harrison, both timekeepers were sent to Greenwich, where comparisons with the observatory’s transit clock began on 19 March 1770.
Cook's second voyage, 1772-1775
It was decided in November 1771 that K1 should sail with Cook on his second voyage. In the meantime, it remained at Greenwich under trial. On 10 January 1772, however, it stopped. The Astronomer Royal, the then Nevil Maskeleyne, stated I could not make it go again…tho’ I warmed it by the fire and gave motion to the ballance. It was taken to Kendall's workshop and opened in the presence of the Astronomer Royal and two watchmakers, who stated :
This day we were present at Mr. Kendall's when Mr. Maskelyne brought the watch made by Mr. Kendall for the Board of Longitude; And, upon examining it, we found the running wheels of the Remontoir properly locked and the watch stopped by one of the Contrate Wheel crosses coming against one of the Arms of the Remontoir Barrel. On Mr. Kendall's discharging the running Wheels and putting the Ballance in motion the Watch went and continued to go very briskly til' it was again stopped to be taken to pieces by Mr. Kendall; And, in being taken to pieces, the parts now examined seemed neither injured nor wore.
Trials recommenced on 24 March and continued until 25 April, soon after which, K1 was sent on board the Resolution at Deptfordt.
As large sums of money in the form of rewards were at stake, the Admiralty and Board of Longitude took elaborate precautions against the watches being tampered with while at sea. They had special boxes made, with three separate keys, and laid down an elaborate procedure for the daily winding, attended by the Captain, first lieutenant, and astronomer. On the Resolution, the boxes for K1 and Arnold No. 3 were kept one on either side of the ship’s great cabin.
The two ships sailed from Deptford on 9 April, 1772, but did not reach Plymouth until July 3, many alterations having being found necessary at Sheerness. Cook's journal for July 10 refered to the timekeepers as follows :
The Board of Longitude were not wanting on their part in providing the Astronomers with the very best of Instruments both for makeing Celestial and Nautical Observations but as the principal object these gentlemen are sent out upon is to ascertain the going of Mr. Kendall's Watch and three of Mr. Arnolds, they employ'd themselves during our stay at Plymouth in makeing the necessary Observations on Drakes Island…and at 7 o'Clock in ye even on the Friday before we departed the Watches were put in motion in the presence of my self Captain Furneaux, the first Lieutenant of each of the Sloops, the two astronomers and Mr Arnold and afterward put on board: Mr Kendalls and one of Mr Arnolds on board the Resolution and the other two of Mr Arnolds on board the Adventure: the Commander, First Lieutenant and Astronomer on board each of the Sloops had each of them Keys of the Boxes which contained the Watches and were allways to be present at the winding them up and comparing the one with the other [sic].
The two ships finally sailed for the South Seas on Monday, 13 July 1772.
Though the prime purpose of Cook's second and third voyages was geographical, one of Cook's most important secondary aims was to try out the timekeepers. The written instructions given to William Wales the Resolution's astronomer, contained the following paragraph :
You are to Wind up the Watches Every Day, as soon after the times of Noon as you can conveniently, and compare them together and Set down the respective times, and you are to Note also the times of the Watches when the Suns Morning and Afternoon altitudes, or the Distances of the Moon from the Sun and fixed Stars, are Observed; and to compute the Longitude resulting from the Comparison of the Watches with the Apparent time of the day inferred from the Morning & Afternoon Altitudes of the Sun, and as often as you shall have opportunities, you are to Compare one of the said Watches with one of those which may be under the care of the undermentioned Mr Bayley in the other Sloop, and Note down the respective times Shewn by the said Watches.
Whenever the ships stayed anywhere for any length of time, the astronomers went ashore and set up their observatory. With the aid of the astronomical clock and quadrant, they found the error of the watch on every day possible and thereby computed its daily rate of gain or loss on mean time. All these observations and computations were subsequently published.
K1 performed magnificently and, by half way through the voyage, Cook was full of praise. Throughout, the uncertainty in daily rate never exceeded eight seconds of time (two nautical miles of distance on the equator, correspondingly less in higher latitudes) and, when the mean was taken, the rate could be predicted to much greater accuracy. In the Society Islands in June 1774, Cook said :
…she [K1] had lost since our leaving Queen Charlotte's Sound, of her then rate of going 8' 34.5"; this was in about 5 Months or something more, during which time she had passed through the extremes of both Cold and heat. It was judged that half this Error arose after we left Easter Island by which it appeared that she went better in the Cold than in hot climates.
When the voyage was nearly over, Cook wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty from the Cape stating :
Mr. Kendalls Watch has exceeded the expectations of its most zealous advocate and by being now and then corrected by lunar observations has been our faithful guide through all the vicissitudes of climates.
But perhaps Cook's greatest act of faith in K1 took place during the passage from the Cape of Good Hope to Saint Helena, some 4000 kilometres east of Rio de Janeiro. To make certain of finding a small objective like Saint Helena in an empty ocean, it was common practice for ships to aim for a point well to the east or west of the expected position of the island and then, when the island's latitude, which was easy to find was reached, to steer west or east until land was sighted. But now Cook had the means to circumvent this time wasting process :
Depending on the goodness of Mr. Kendalls Watch, I resolved to try to make the island by a direct course, it did not deceive us and we made it accordingly on the 15th of May at Day-break in the Morning in the direction of WNW about 14 leagues distant.
The Dutton of the East India Company was sailing with the Resolution, at the time of this incident. The commercial advantages of being able to steer directly to a port were not lost on the Court of Directors of that Company, and it was not long before East India ships began to carry chronometers.
The Resolution arrived in Spithead on 30 July 1775. Wales took K1 ashore at Portsmouth, compared it with the transit clock of the Royal Academy, and then took it up to London by post-chaise. The following day, 1 August, he took it down to Greenwich by coach, and still going, delivered it to Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal.
Before leaving, Maskelyne had found the daily rate to be losing 3/8th of a second a day. More than three years later and after travelling the equivalent of twice round the world in every sort of climate, he found K1 was gaining 13 seconds per day. William Wales stated :
From the preceding account it appears to what an amazing degree of accuracy the ingenious Inventor of this Watch had brought this branch of mechanics so long ago as the year 1762, or 3; and at the same time what room is yet left for future improvements by other Artists: but let no man boast that he has excelled him, until his machines have undergone as rigorous a trial as this has done.
