Longitude rewards

The need for better navigational accuracy for increasingly longer oceanic voyages had been an issue explored by many European nations for centuries before the passing of the Longitude Act 1714 in England.

It is postulated by scholars that the economic gains and political power to be had in oceanic exploration, and not scientific and technological curiosity, is what resulted in the swift passing of the Longitude Act 1714 (13 Ann.

[6] In the early 1700s, a series of maritime disasters occurred, including the wrecking of a squadron of naval vessels on the Isles of Scilly in 1707.

[7] Around the same time, mathematician Thomas Axe decreed in his will that a £1,000 prize be awarded for promising research into finding "true longitude" and that annual sums be paid to scholars involved in making corrected world maps.

[9] In addition, rewards were on offer for those who could produce a method that worked within 80 geographical miles of the coast (where ships would be in most danger), and for those with promising ideas who needed financial help to bring them to trial.

Proposed methods would be tested by sailing through the ocean, from Britain to any port in West Indies (about six weeks) without losing its longitude beyond the limits listed above.

This panel of adjudicators would review proposed solutions and were also given authority to grant up to £2,000 in advances for promising projects that did not entirely fulfill the terms of the prize levels, but that were still found worthy of encouragement.

Some later recipients of rewards, such as Euler and Mayer, made clear publicly that the money was not the incentive, but instead the important improvements to navigation and cartography.

[14] Though the Board of Longitude did not award £20,000 at one time, they did offer sums to various individuals in recognition of their work for improvements in instrumentation or in published atlases and star charts.

From 1760 to 1765, Harrison received £2,865 for various expenses related to the construction, ocean trials, and eventual award for the performance of his sea watch H4.

[11] Harrison made one rather than the requested two further copies of H4, and he and his family members eventually appealed to King George III after petitions for further rewards were not answered by the Board of Longitude.