it is most plain from the confusion all these people are to be in how to make good their accounts (even each man’s with itself) and the nonsensical arguments they would make use of to do it, and disorder they are in about it ... that it is by God Almighty’s providence and great chance and the wideness of the sea that there are not a great many [more] misfortunes and ill chances in Navigation ...15
The school solution had been one way to address the problem. Pepys anticipated that, with concerted state support and the help of astronomers and mathematicians, the painful situation he described might be alleviated to the benefit of the nation.
Up until the eighteenth century, longitude determination at sea was one of a number of challenges that faced naval and merchant fleets worldwide. As different nations became the dominant players in maritime affairs, so their political and commercial leaders were willing to give encouragement to anyone offering to solve any of the myriad problems that diminished profits and put lives in danger.
In Britain, the drive to improve navigational knowledge gained impetus as a result of the loss of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and his men. As an experienced and high-ranking naval officer who knew the dangers only too well, Shovell had had an interest in navigational improvements; for instance, he had met with Isaac Newton in 1699 to examine a proposal for finding longitude put forward by a Monsieur Burden. His death in 1707 alongside so many of his men was a national disaster and, though not solely (if at all) attributable to problems in determining longitude, would be cited in lobbying for a Longitude Act seven years later.
Since there were techniques allowing mariners to navigate with some confidence, one could argue that the measurement of longitude was not an insurmountable problem for them. Nonetheless, it was a practical issue whose solution was felt by some to be within reach and of obvious benefit. For mathematicians, astronomers and cartographers, in particular, it was an intellectual challenge and a practical conundrum in which the peculiarities of being at sea merely hindered elegant mathematical and astronomical solutions. To their way of thinking, here was an arena in which their skills might be called upon in the service of humanity, perhaps earning them fame, fortune and influence in the process. Longitude was a problem for which they believed they might have the answer, and it was they who would put it on the political agenda.
in the Judgment of Able Mathematicians and Navigators, several Methods have already been Discovered, true in Theory, though very Difficult in Practice ...
‘An Act for Providing a Publick Reward for such Person or Persons as shall Discover the Longitude at Sea’ (1714)1
Longitude, as a definable problem that could be separated out from the myriad risks and uncertainties of maritime travel, was of interest to theorists as well as practical navigators. It was, in fact, an issue that advocates of natural and experimental philosophy – what we today call science – latched onto as one for which their approach might be particularly successful. It was clear that finding a solution would be a propaganda coup for the new scientific institutions. It would be irrefutable proof that experimental, observational and mathematical methods, overseen by gentleman philosophers, could be applied to practical issues of importance to national interests.
Within Britain, maritime matters had been a significant focus for the Royal Society of London. That these included tackling longitude was a matter for satire, as in this anonymous poem, ‘In praise of the Choyce company of Philosophers and witts who meet on Wednesdays weekley, at Gresham Colledge’, written in 1661:
The Colledge will the whole world measure,
Which most impossible conclude,
And Navigation make a pleasure
By finding out the longitude.
Every Tarpalling shall then with ease
Sayle any ships to th’ Antipodes.2
Fellows of the Royal Society were to play a significant role in the passing of the Longitude Act by the British Parliament in 1714, which was itself to transform the relationship between scientific expertise and the state. It was, however, just the latest in a long line of initiatives to reward anyone able to arrive at workable solutions to the problem.
Longitude rewards
Rulers and states with maritime ambitions who were convinced that the longitude problem could be solved looked for ways to hasten solutions. Their conviction was, it seems, more often the result of lobbying by those likely to gain from financial incentives than a response to calls for assistance from practical seamen. The first such incentive scheme was established in Spain, the leading maritime power of the sixteenth century, by Philip II in 1567. This was followed in 1598 by Philip III’s offer of a reward of 6000 ducats, plus 2000 a year for life – some sixty times the annual income of a labourer – and 1000 towards expenses. The large reward was never paid out but several promising inventions were recognized by the repayment of expenses.
The life-changing size of the rewards on offer, and the fact that workable and complete solutions to the problem were clearly not appearing, led to the whole enterprise being satirized. Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, was one among many over the centuries to mock those who were mad enough to attempt such an impossible task, or who drove themselves mad in its pursuit. He wrote in 1613 of a mathematician who found fixing the longitude like chasing a will-o’-the-wisp:
Two and twenty years I have been employed in finding out the longitude ... and imagining oftentimes, that I have found it, and that it cannot possibly escape me, when I do not in the least suspect it, I find myself as far to seek as ever, which fills me with surprise and astonishment: it is the same with the square of the circle, which I have come so nigh finding out, that I know not, nor can imagine why I have it not at this time in my pocket ...3
Finding the longitude – like squaring the circle, creating perpetual motion or predicting the future – was often presented as a fool’s errand. Yet the solutions were, in theory, well understood. What they needed were technical responses to the various challenges thrown up by imperfect astronomical tables and conditions at sea. The answer might, therefore, have seemed tantalizingly close. To nudge them forward, the States General and States of Holland and, less officially, a number of other governments and individuals followed the Spanish example by offering rewards for meeting these challenges. Serious and important ideas were submitted, trials were made and some money paid out.
The Dutch scheme began in 1600 and established a range of rewards, with large one-off sums, annuities and smaller sums for those with promising ideas ready for trial. The top rewards increased over time, with the States of Holland offering 3000 guilders in 1601 and 50,000 in 1738. These sums were sufficiently alluring to attract a steady flow of ideas. There were forty-six submissions between 1600 and 1775, judged by ad hoc committees of theoretical and practical experts, including surveyors, teachers of navigation and university professors. The Dutch East India Company took an interest in the process, reflecting the particular risks and rewards of their trade routes. As with the Spanish reward, a whole range of ideas and solutions was offered, and a number underwent sea trial.
England and France came relatively late to longitude research but their arrival coincided with a period of significant advances in astronomy and instrument-making. Government and royal interest in finding longitude solutions led in both nations to the patronage of individuals with plausible methods, to the theme being taken up by the learned academies – the Royal Society of London and French Académie des Sciences, founded in 1660 and 1666 respectively – and to the establishment of observatories in Paris in 1667 and at Greenwich in 1675.
In terms of both the legislation and the work it was meant to encourage, the passing of the British Longitude Act of 1714 was more a case of continuity than