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John Harrison was an English joiner and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of how to calculate longitude while at sea.
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science · English clockmaker (1693–1776) · clockmaker · astronomer · inventor · designer · watchmaker · also John Harrison, Harrison
Born 24 March 1693 · Died 24 March 1776 · Q314335
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Snopes rated the claim “After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Navy Chief of Staff John Harrison in October 2025, authorities arrested Harrison on suspicion of treason.” Originated as Satire.
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Northern Rail named diesel railcar 153316 as the John 'Longitude' Harrison
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Is a homage by the designer to Harrison's work but is of an electromechanical design
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Though all his costs, such as materials and subcontracting work to other horologists, had to come out of this)
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Harrison's last manuscript, A true and short, but full Account of the Foundation of Musick, or, as principally therein, of the Existence of the Natural Notes of Melody, was rediscovered in the US Library of Congress
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The British composer Harrison Birtwistle wrote the piano piece "Harrison's clocks" which contains musical depictions of Harrison's various clocks
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Inspired by a Harvard University symposium on the longitude problem organized by the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Dava Sobel wrote a book about Harrison's work
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While Clock B lay unfinished in his workshop for decades until it was acquired in 2009 by Donald Saff
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Martin Burgess, a Harrison expert and himself a clockmaker, studied the plans and endeavored to build the timepiece as drawn
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Which covered the history of chronometers from the Middle Ages to the 1920s, and which included detailed descriptions of Harrison's work and the subsequent evolution of the chronometer
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By the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, even though Harrison had never been a member of the Company
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H4's escapement had "a good deal of 'set' and not so much recoil, and as a result the impulse came very near to a double chronometer action"
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Died 1776-03-24.
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Won Copley Medal (1749).
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Born 1693-03-24.
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