The Last Act of Queen Anne

Legislated Incentives

By 1707 the poor state of navigation became an even more acute issue, especially in England. In that year Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovel together with 2,000 of his men had died when his fleet ran into the Scilly isles, west of Cornwall. At the time, with the exception of only one man, all his navigators had agreed that the ships lay to the east of Scilly. In 1714 the House of Commons was petitioned by "several Captains of Her Majesty’s Ships, Merchants of London, and Commanders of Merchantmen" in the following terms: That the Discovery of the Longitude is of such Consequence to Great Britain, for Safety of the Navy, Merchant Ships, as well as Improvement of Trade, that for want thereof, many ships have been retarded in their Voyages, and many lost, but if due Encouragement were proposed by the Publick for such as shall discover the same, some Persons would offer themselves to prove the same, before the most proper judges..." (Williams, 1992:80).

The House of Commons referred the issue to a committee which consulted leading scientists including Halley and Newton. Newton’s response was referred to the House for consideration on 11 June 1714. He correctly observed that calculations of longitude at sea, based on the eclipses of Jupiter were not feasible because unduly long telescopes would be required and the movement of the ships would make accurate observations impossible. Another option for calculating longitude that Newton contemplated was the use of an accurate seaworthy clock. Although clocks had been invented, none were yet sufficiently accurate to be able to be used as Newton himself observed: "by reason of the Motion of the Ship, the Variation of Heat and Cold, Wet and Dry, and the Difference of Gravity in different Latitudes, such a Watch has not yet been made." (Williams, 1992:80). This reference to a watch and accurate time keeping is not unexpected. In 1714 the idea that an accurate timekeeper would provide a simple means for the calculation of longitude was well enough understood. As discussed earlier it had been first expounded by the astronomer Gemma Frisius in 1530. The problem was simply persisting because technology of time-keeping was not yet up with theory (Quill, 1966:4).

The Committee thus recommended to the House of Commons: "That a Reward be settled by Parliament upon such Person or Persons as shall discover a more certain and practicable Method of Ascertaining the Longitude than any yet in practice; and the said Reward be proportioned to the Degree of Exactness to which the said Method shall reach." (Quill, 1966:6). Parliament accepted these recommendations and on 8 July 1714 Queen Anne signed the Act - her last as it happened, for she died soon after.

This Act provided for large rewards up to 20 000 pounds for anyone able to devise a practical device for calculating longitude at sea within certain specified degrees of accuracy. The device had to be subjected to a test voyage to the West Indies (a period of at least six weeks). Furthermore the invention had to indicate the longitude of the port of arrival to within specified limits of accuracy. The prize was to be awarded on a sliding scale: 10 000 pounds would be awarded if the error did not exceed 60 miles; 15 000 pounds would be awarded if the error did not exceed 40 miles; and 20 000 pounds would be awarded if the error did not exceed 30 miles.

The Act provided that the award would be judged by the Commissioners of the Board of Longitude. This Board was composed of politicians, sailors and scholars who also had the power to allocate funds for the development of likely proposals and to recommend the presentation of the award if an invention was to prove "practicable within the meaning and limits laid down by the Act." (Quill, 1966:7).

Despite the incentive of the award, for the first 23 years of the Board’s existence nothing was recorded in their minutes. Apparently no serious proposition had been laid before them.

The only possible exception to this was the publication, soon after the Act was passed, of a proposal by two mathematicians Rev. William Whiston and Rev. Humphry Ditton. This publication was titled "A New Method for Discovering the Longitude both at Sea and Land". Essentially they proposed a scheme based on lightships which would be moored at specific points in mid-ocean along the trade-routes generally frequented by sailing ships. At midnight on each ship a star shell would be fired by each ship to a height well over a mile. According to Whiston and Ditton these explosions would be able to be heard and seen to a distance of 85 miles. Ordinary watches on board ships could then be corrected and the sailors check their dead-reckoning. This scheme was of course entirely impracticable and no attempt was ever made to implement it (Quill, 1966:7). The most obvious objection is that each light ship itself required an accurate clock, which was not available. To the extent that the time signal could have been relayed visually out from land, it anticipated the eventual use of radio waves for the same purpose.