![]() ![]() The grid-iron pendulum was developed during this period. Between 17, John and his brother James, also a skilled joiner, made at least three precision longcase clocks, again with the movements and longcase made of oak and lignum vitae. Unlike his early clocks, it incorporates some original features to improve timekeeping, for example the grasshopper escapement. The clock still works, and like his previous clocks has a wooden movement of oak and lignum vitae. In the early 1720s, Harrison was commissioned to make a new turret clock at Brocklesby Park, North Lincolnshire. After her death in 1726, he married Elizabeth Scott on 23 November 1726, at the same church. On 30 August 1718, John Harrison married Elizabeth Barret at Barrow-upon-Humber church. The Nostell example, in the billiards room of this stately home, has a Victorian outer case, which has small glass windows on each side of the movement so that the wooden workings may be inspected. The second (1715) is also in the Science Museum in London and the third (1717) is at Nostell Priory in Yorkshire, the face bearing the inscription "John Harrison Barrow". Three of Harrison's early wooden clocks have survived: the first (1713) is in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers' collection previously in the Guildhall in London, and since 2015 on display in the Science Museum. Harrison built his first longcase clock in 1713, at the age of 20. ( April 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help to improve this section by introducing more precise citations. This section includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. He also had a fascination for music, eventually becoming choirmaster for Barrow parish church. Legend has it that at the age of six, while in bed with smallpox, he was given a watch to amuse himself and he spent hours listening to it and studying its moving parts. Following his father's trade as a carpenter, Harrison built and repaired clocks in his spare time. Īround 1700, the Harrison family moved to the Lincolnshire village of Barrow upon Humber. A house on the site of what may have been the family home bears a blue plaque. His step father worked as a carpenter at the nearby Nostell Priory estate. John Harrison was born in Foulby in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the first of five children in his family. Harrison came 39th in the BBC's 2002 public poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Toward the end of his life, he received recognition and a reward from Parliament. Harrison gained support from the Longitude Board in building and testing his designs. Harrison presented his first design in 1730, and worked over many years on improved designs, making several advances in time-keeping technology, finally turning to what were called sea watches. The problem he solved had been considered so important following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 that the British Parliament was offering financial rewards of up to £20,000 (equivalent to £3.35 million in 2023) under the 1714 Longitude Act, though Harrison was never fully able to receive these rewards due to political rivalries. Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. John Harrison (3 April 1693 – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. ![]()
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