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John Harrison was a carpenter,this places him with with countless thousands of others,me included,excepting this John Harrison was special,he designed the worlds first time piece that actually could be relied on to tell the correct time,this was in 1714,thats 294 years back! The british admiralty had offered a 20,000 pounds prize to anyone who could design and make a clock the would keep time well enough to cross to at least the West Indies,if this was possible they knew they could work out the ships Longitude,impossible otherwise.
John made the clock,it worked but he was never to see the prize himself,his son eventualy was able to collect it,the trouble was it was thought (obviously) that a member of 'The Royal Society' would be the inventor,so when a humble carpenter came along and not one of the Royal Society gentry,they felt that to pay him out was wrong,certainally not what they expected anyway. There is film and a book on the story,I was given a copy of the book as a prize at the TBA Easter regatta 2000,dontaed by Larry Davis of Cinnaco Trading,the book is writen by Dava Sobel,its named simply 'Longitude'.
NB: Johns clocks are still ticking and keeping very good time I hear!
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