HARRISON, John.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Case of Mr. John Harrison [drop-head and docket title]. A rare and significant survival, the third of three editions printed before Harrison was finally awarded most of the prize offered under the terms of the 1714 Longitude Act.The Act offered £20,000 to the inventor of a method of pinpointing longitude within a margin of error of 30 geographical miles, as well as prizes of £15,000 and £10,000 for lesser accuracies of 40 and 60 miles. Despite the success of Harrison's chronometers in successive trial voyages to the West Indies, the Board of Longitude was reluctant to award the prize in full. Harrison resorted to lobbying for the money in print.Three versions of the Case, printed in 1767, 1770, and 1773, are known, and all are rare institutionally. Of the present edition, ESTC and WorldCat record only two copies (British Museum and National Trust). The historian Humphrey Quill located another in the papers of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers at the Guildhall Library while researching his 1966 book, although it does not currently appear in the library's catalogue.The pamphlet argues that Harrison's chronometer has passed every test set by the board's commissioners. It complains that his masterpiece, H4, has been duplicated successfully by the watchmaker Larcum Kendall, while he, the creator, has been denied all access. According to Quill, Harrison circulated the 1773 printing to MPs "as a last despairing effort" (p. 199) ahead of the board's latest consideration of hi

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