Act of Longitude by Queen Anne, 1714
John Baskett, London
Maker:
Collectie:
NavigArte
After the naval disaster of 1707, in which around 2,000 sailors lost their lives due to navigational errors, a prize of £20,000 was announced and laid down in this Act by the Board of Longitude. A solution had to be found for determining longitude at sea. Clockmaker John Harrison and the astronomer Tobias Mayer (through his widow) received the largest share of this prize.
First edition of the first publication of the Longitude Act, which encouraged the discovery of a method of quickly and accurately determining a ship's longitude. An early example of a means adopted by a government for encouraging scientific discovery and progress. This formerly unusual role of government in catalyzing or financing scientific progress is now the commonplace and essential (Grolier/Horblitt). As time passed and no method proved successful, the search for a solution to the longitude problem assumed legendary proportions, on a par with discovering the Fountain of Youth, the secret of perpetual motion, or the formula for transforming lead into gold. The governments of the great maritime nations - including Spain, the Netherlands, and certain city-states of Italy - periodically roiled the fervor by offering jackpot purses for a workable method. The British Parliament, in its famed Longitude Act of 1714, set the highest bounty of all, naming a prize equal to a king's ransom (several million dollars in today's currency) for a Practicable and Useful means of determining longitude (Sobel, p. 8). The Act established the Longitude Board, tasked with evaluating proposals for measuring longitude and awarding prizes. The top prize of £20,000 was reserved for any method that could measure longitude within one half of a degree.