Navigational Enterprises in Europe and its Empires, 1730–1850

Rebekah Higgitt, Richard Dunn, Rebekah Higgitt, Richard Dunn, Kenneth A. Loparo, Rebekah Higgitt, Richard Dunn, Peter Jones

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137520647
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Europe

This book explores the development of navigation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It examines the role of men of science, seamen and practitioners across Europe, and the realities of navigational practice, showing that old and new methods were complementary not exclusive, their use dependent on many competing factors.

1

Introduction

Rebekah Higgitt and Richard Dunn

The story of eighteenth-century navigation has usually been told as a British one, focused on the successful search for a means of establishing longitude at sea. The desire for heroic stories about individuals – their discoveries, inventions and triumphs – has often reduced this history to that of one man, John Harrison, a clockmaker whose work inspired the development of the marine chronometer. The essays in this collection challenge such assumptions, which have proliferated in academic and popular literature.¹ They insist on plurality, in the places, people, problems, solutions and circumstances that furthered the development of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century maritime practice. They expand the story in terms of geography and time. This collection has two overriding aims: to present work on and the historiography of non-British experiences in the development of new navigational techniques and instruments; and to examine their use in practice, demonstrating that the available methods were complementary rather than exclusive, and that when and how they were used was contingent on local, national and other circumstances. The chapters also reveal the slow process of technological development and adoption, the varying roles of states and institutions and the international and local characteristics of this process.

The contributions to this volume to an extent take the well-known longitude story for granted, so we present a basic outline here.² As nations developed ambitions for maritime exploration, expansion and trade, navigation generally and longitude in particular became topics for discussion and development, at sea and in more idealized, land-based contexts. Although by no means the only area of interest, determining longitude was identified as a matter over which there was considerable doubt and in which mathematicians, astronomers and instrument-makers might make significant improvements. Longitude and latitude were typically established using dead reckoning – estimating the ship’s position relative to the last known location by tracking speed and heading, taking into account winds, currents and other conditions. Observations of the altitude of the Sun or pole star could also be used to determine latitude with reasonable accuracy. Longitude lacked these reference points, although it had been known since ancient times that the difference in longitude between two locations is equivalent to their time difference. Observing the Sun or stars could establish local time whether on land or sea. The question was how to find the local time of a distant location with which to compare it.

The view that the development of new instruments and practices could solve the problem was evident in published works on astronomy and navigation and in the initiation of rewards and prizes by states with maritime ambitions. Spain offered royal rewards from 1567, the Dutch States from 1600, the British government from 1714 and the French Académie des sciences from 1720. The British example is the best known; Parliament in 1714 passed the Longitude Act, which appointed commissioners to judge submitted and trialled methods. The Act provided rewards of up to £20,000 if longitude could be found or kept to within half a degree. There were lower rewards for less precise methods and for ones that were usable within 80 miles of the coast. The Act also offered incentives to bring promising ideas to trial.

By 1714, there was a well-established set of methods, which, as Isaac Newton put it to Parliament, were ‘true in theory but difficult to execute’.³ They included the production of a timekeeper that, despite motion and changing conditions on board ship, could keep the reference time (local time at a known location) with sufficient accuracy that it could be compared with local time on board ship to establish difference in longitude. This was an obvious desideratum, but it presented technical challenges, which individuals such as Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke and Henry Sully explored. Other methods, based on astronomy, determined reference time from the motions of celestial bodies, comparing their predicted positions at the reference location with that observed at sea. Interest in astronomical methods had led to the establishment of two observatories with royal and government patronage: the Observatoire de Paris (founded 1667) and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (1675).

One astronomical method was to observe the regular eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. Galileo Galilei, who discovered them in 1610, immediately sought to use them to establish longitude, developing a theory of their motions and methods to facilitate their observation. Although he had limited success, subsequent work turned his approach into a fruitful method for establishing longitude on land. From that date, there was ongoing experimentation with devices that might facilitate the delicate observation of Jupiter’s satellites at sea. The precision required meant that observations of the much closer Moon seemed to offer greater hope. One of the possibilities that astronomers explored was the lunar distance method, which relied on measuring the Moon’s position relative to the Sun or stars. The main challenge was the complexity of lunar motion, which is affected by the gravitational pull of both the Earth and the Sun. This problem ultimately defeated Newton, who had tried to tackle it in his Principia Mathematica.

By the 1750s, however, many of the technical problems were beginning to be overcome. The use of mirrors and lenses on observing instruments led to the development of instruments – octants, sextants and reflecting circles – that improved the accuracy of shipboard observations. Ongoing mathematical and theoretical work, much of it done on the European Continent, and observational work, particularly in Britain, came together in Tobias Mayer’s theory of lunar motion, which, though imperfect, was potentially good enough for navigation. Meanwhile, developments in horology, which had revolutionized the accuracy of land-based astronomy in the seventeenth century, were beginning to be applied to marine timekeepers.⁴ John Harrison’s first sea clock (‘H1’) had a promising trial in 1736, gaining the support of the Royal Society of London and the first of a series of rewards from the Commissioners of Longitude, which helped support Harrison’s eventual development of his famous sea watch (‘H4’). In France, the Académie offered rewards for mechanical timekeepers and received, in the 1750s, sealed descriptions of such instruments by Pierre Le Roy and Ferdinand Berthoud.

While timekeeping and astronomy have been seen as the two key – and rival – methods for finding longitude, it is clear from this book’s chapters and recent research on the Board of Longitude that they were neither the only methods, nor perceived as rivals, except, perhaps, by individuals seeking rewards. In fact, it was understood that these two methods worked best when used together. Timekeepers were, although not as simple to use as it might be thought, quicker and easier than astronomical methods and ideal for keeping track of time and longitude between opportunities for checking their going, either on land or at sea. Timekeepers are, however, subject to cumulative errors and can go wrong in various ways. Only astronomy could find longitude, rather than simply track it.

One should not ignore other navigational methods, either. There were techniques already in use, including dead reckoning, depth sounding and visual markers such as patterns of currents, coastal features, birds, fish and plants. New techniques did not replace these practices; they were used in conjunction with them. There were also techniques that have come to be dismissed, either at the time or in subsequent historiography. These include the use of signals, despite the rocket scheme put forward by William Whiston and Humphrey Ditton in 1714 having been ridiculed. Another was navigation using the patterns of the Earth’s magnetic field, usually variation (or declination), the angular difference between true and magnetic north. For this method to be widely used, the patterns would have to be mapped, with readings of variation plotted on a chart. The patterns were complex and changed over time, however, ultimately making this method impractical. Nevertheless, the method was used in particular sea areas, notably where lines of equal variation were close together and ran nearly north-south.

There is, however, no straightforward line to be drawn between the development of methods in observatories, studies and workshops and their use at sea. Ideas had to sound plausible to interest officials and potential patrons. Astronomical and other data had to come together with effective hardware before either could be put to work. Prototype instruments had to be developed into effective and affordable commodities; governments and trading companies had to invest in infrastructure and training. All methods had to be tried and tested, not just to gain recognition, rewards and contracts but also – slowly – to become trusted elements of maritime practice. A research project on the British Board of Longitude undertaken by the University of Cambridge and the National Maritime Museum (NMM) (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council) has begun to tell the story. This volume reinforces and broadens it, geographically and thematically.⁵ In presenting more nuanced accounts of the development and practice of navigation, therefore, this book complements the new history of the Board of Longitude.⁶

The chapters in this book evolved from papers given at workshops and conferences associated with this research project and the NMM. In particular, ‘Oceanic Enterprise: Location, Longitude and Maritime Cultures 1770–1830’, held in January 2013 at the project’s partner organization, The Huntington, in San Marino, California, situated the Board’s work within broader contexts of European empire, trade and exploration. The chapters by John Gascoigne, David Philip Miller and Simon Werrett are based on papers delivered there. Another workshop and a major conference, both at the NMM, led to chapters by Guy Boistel, Karel Davids, Michael Kershaw, Juan Pimentel and Martina Schiavon.⁷ Jane Wess first presented a version of her chapter at a conference on Joseph Banks at the NMM in 2011.⁸ Finally, a session at the 2013 International Congress of Science, Technology and Medicine led to the chapters by Jacob Orrje and Danielle Fauque.⁹

Although our core themes run throughout the book, it is divided into four sections that reflect the organizing principles of their chapters. The first section examines the question from particular national and imperial contexts, correcting histories that largely ignore non-British contributions and reflecting historical accounts often available only in other languages. These chapters reveal why the nation is unsatisfactory as a unit for exploring this history, both because people, ideas and instruments flowed between states, and because empires brought together spaces of widely divergent histories and practices. They emphasize how the contexts in which new longitude techniques were introduced affected their take-up and use. These contexts include states – their support for new methods, as well as their relationships with, and self-perceptions relative to, other nations. Particular sea routes that challenged national and merchant navies constituted another important factor.

Pimentel focuses on the Iberian context, including the shifting reference points for longitude – prime meridians – that the Spanish Empire employed, reflecting imperial ambitions in the Atlantic or claims to scientific modernity by the Real Observatorio de Cádiz. He situates longitude within a longer history of navigation and exploration, in which the ability to measure latitude figures as a significant advance and the politics of maps and meridians influence practice. The chapter by Davids tells the Dutch story, which also opens with consideration of meridians, noting the official adoption in the 1820s of the Greenwich meridian. This reflects both the extent to which British publications and charts were in widespread use by then, and a turn within the Netherlands after the Napoleonic Wars from French to British navigational technologies. Through an examination of the role of the Dutch Longitude Committee, Davids explores the relationship between state-supported provision, within a decentralized group of provinces, and maritime practice. Decisions about the use of different techniques were pragmatic and dependent on circumstances.

The two following chapters shift to France, which was more intimately bound up with the British story than is usually acknowledged. As Boistel shows, French contributions were fundamental to the mathematics and astronomy behind the development of the lunar distance method for use at sea, which the Board of Longitude’s publication of the Nautical Almanac from 1767 successfully supported. His chapter explores the importance of particular individuals, who, if positioned within government or Académie, could promote or undermine particular lines of enquiry. They were also participants within an international correspondence network of astronomers and mathematicians. Schiavon takes the story forward to the 1795 founding of the Bureau des longitudes, exploring the histories that its recently digitized minutes reveal. She considers the Bureau less as a response to British maritime dominance, although this was used as a rhetorical strategy, than as a unique institution that brought together particular strands of scientific enquiry during the Revolutionary period, just after the closing of the Académie, and beyond. Building on the skills, techniques, instruments and objects of study associated with maritime navigation, and renegotiating the relationship with the nation’s observatories and other institutions, Schiavon shows that geodesy was to become a key focus within the strategically placed institution.

The book’s second section further develops the discussion about international correspondence and influence, by investigating specific examples of transnational encounter, appropriation and cooperation. Spain and the Netherlands had dominated maritime exploration and trade until the eighteenth century, and promoting new longitude techniques was a way to reassert their primacy. Elsewhere there was a felt need to ‘catch up’ to become part of modern Europe. In some cases, these efforts led to more effective implementation of training than found in Britain and France. Although these various nations established different traditions of training and support for navigation, their institutions and scientific practitioners were in constant communication. Nations did not seem to regard new approaches to navigation as state secrets or even, beyond the interests of instrument makers, commercially sensitive. Britain and France, close neighbours and rivals, pursued navigation and metrology through cooperation underpinned by competition. Rivalry could be expressed through imitation and collaboration.

In his case study, Orrje reveals some of the means by which information circulated and how one individual might take on different identities to ease communication. He follows the Swedish astronomer Bengt Ferrner’s visit to London in 1759–60, a crucial moment in the development and support of the new longitude methods. Ferrner’s journal provides fascinating insight into London’s central role in generating interest and support for a range of methods, from the workshop in which John Harrison was making his famous timekeepers to the marine chair, designed by the otherwise little-known Christopher Irwin for observing Jupiter’s satellites from a ship. We see London as an international community and, again, the porous nature of national identity among overlapping communities of maritime, trade, political and scientific interest. In different contexts, being a Swede or a man of science might more easily facilitate information sharing. Werrett also notes the significance of people travelling to Britain to learn about instruments and practices. Russia had a long history of learning from Britain, whether by importing experts or sending cadets for training. Yet Werrett points out that the information flow was by no means one way: individuals based in Russia played important roles in developing or trialling new ideas. Looking at the practice of navigation in Russian voyages of exploration, we see that new and foreign by no means trumped tried and tested. Again, the complementary nature of old and new methods, and the pragmatics needed in practice, are revealed within ‘complex relationships of trust in different instruments and personnel’ (p. 111).

Several chapters emphasize the links between observations on land and at sea. Observatories were established to support the production of predictive tables, known land locations were used to check and correct longitudes established at sea, portable observatories were used to fix longitudes on land during voyages, and the use and creation of accurate charts crucially underpinned accurate navigation. We should also note the similarities of practice and personnel that linked land-based and maritime surveys. Kershaw’s chapter focuses on collaborative work by British and French governments (including, in the 1820s, their boards of longitude) to establish the difference in longitude between the two most important centres of astronomic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• Part I  National Enterprises
• Part II  Longitude in Transnational Contexts
• Part III  Voyages as Test Sites
• Part IV  The Practice of Navigation
• Index