The story begins with John Harrison, as documented in Dava Sobel's book Longitude and its British television adaptation. Until then, ships had been navigating with accuracy only as regards the ship’s north-south position, using the North Star and/or the Southern Cross. Determining the east-west position of a ship and its destination was vital to the Admiralty’s, (and the Government’s), plans for further expansion and empire. It was also necessary to avoid the massive losses in time, money and human life that inaccurate navigation and shipwreck caused.
Lack of solutions led to the government making an Act of Parliament in 1714 offering a prize of £20,000 (£3M today). There was a whole spectrum of ideas suggested, ranging from serious (Whitton and Diston’s light-houses) to silly (using wounded dogs to yelp at set intervals). Isaac Newton was among the judges and concluded that a watch/clock would have to overcome the following challenge: a watch to keep time exactly: but by reason of the motion of the ship, the variation in heat and cold, wet and dry, and the difference in gravity at different latitudes, such a watch had not yet been made.[1]
The competition winner was Harrison’s Sea Watch chronometer, in essence a super-accurate clock which functioned despite the rock and roll of the ship, and enabled a hitherto unimaginable level of navigational accuracy, driving Great Britain’s maritime empire to ever greater heights. Harrison received his official award only after repeated appeals and indeed the intervention of George III.
William Walker was born in 1783 and founded a dynasty of watchmakers in St. Helens, Merseyside.[2] His grandson, Thomas Mercer (b. 1822) was apprenticed to him. Thomas’s father, Richard Mercer, was a sailmaker, so Thomas had the horological and the nautical in his career ancestry.
The Shackleton Chronometer.
Thomas moved to Liverpool to continue working as a watchmaker in 1843, and thence to London in 1854, to buy a one-way ticket to the USA, in search of new and better prospects. Seeing a chronometer in the window of John Fletcher (chronometer makers), he changed his mind about the USA, asking for work and being hired on the spot.[3] He then founded the eponymous firm Thomas Mercer Chronometers in Islington, London in 1858. This area, (including Clerkenwell and Covent Garden), was a hotbed of creativity and retailing in the chronometer sector. It was highly competitive – as well as the British names of Dent, Frodsham, Reid, Blackie, Johnson.
The British Horological Institute (BHI) was established in Clerkenwell in 1858, supposedly the first professional horological institute ever. Mercer was its honorary treasurer from 1875 to 1895, and “lectured there on the need to modernize the industry and to train young people”. Years later, his grandson would have to be trained in France (see below) owing to lack of a college in the UK.
TMC (Thomas Mercer Chronometers) remained in Clerkenwell until it moved to bigger premises in St. Albans in 1874.[4]
Chronometers were ‘rated’ for accuracy at the annual trials in Greenwich – success was often lucratively rewarded with contracts from private and public sectors. Tom came second at the Greenwich Trials in 1881. The following year, his son Frank Mercer was born, who in later years won Greenwich first prize in 1911 with Mercer 8306. It was bought by Astronomer RoyalFrank Dyson for the Greenwich Observatory. Thomas Mercer Chronometers sold many ‘white label’ pieces to middlemen, retailers who would put their own name on the dial of a chronometer made completely by TMC. Many of these were very successful at the Greenwich Trials, but the prizes did not go to TMC. Before judging an horological competition in Paris, Tom caught an infection and died there in 1900.
No.1 of the Limited edition of Mercer Marine chronometers to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, 1977.Frank Anthony Mercer examining a sextant. Thomas Mercer's regulator is in the background.
In 1916, while serving in Egypt, Frank received a telegram from the Admiralty stating that the best way he could serve his country was to return home immediately and industrialise British chronometer production, to avoid an imminent shortage.
By the 1980s, they had made a third of all chronometers in history. TMC was by far the most prolific chronometer maker ever; although it was first in terms of quantity, the firm stood also for quality and exclusivity – particularly during the years after World War II when limited series and unique pieces were introduced into its range of products.
Present day
After a period without production, TMC was revived in 2012, and it now makes high-end chronometers for the luxury market with precious materials, with an emphasis on yachting.[7] Although the UK no longer has a chronometer certification/testing system as the Greenwich Trials were suspended at the start of World War I and never reinstated,[8] pinpoint accuracy is still a crucial feature of the 21st century chronometer.
In 2013, TMC reunited with the Sir Ernest Shackleton team, its patron his granddaughter the Hon Alexandra Shackleton[9] and led by Tim Jarvis.[10] It re-enacted the original high-risk voyage, using again a Mercer chronometer.[11]
Related Research Articles
John Harrison was an English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea.
The longitude rewards were the system of inducement prizes offered by the British government for a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude at sea. The prizes, established through an Act of Parliament in 1714, were administered by the Board of Longitude.
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand. Modern watchmakers, when required to repair older watches, for which replacement parts may not be available, must have fabrication skills, and can typically manufacture replacements for many of the parts found in a watch. The term clockmaker refers to an equivalent occupation specializing in clocks.
Ferdinand Berthoud, was a scientist and watchmaker. He became master watchmaker in Paris in 1753. Berthoud, who held the position of Horologist-Mechanic by appointment to the King and the Navy, left behind him an exceptionally broad body of work, in particular in the field of marine chronometers.
Thomas Earnshaw was an English watchmaker who, following John Arnold's earlier work, further simplified the process of marine chronometer production, making them available to the general public. He is also known for his improvements to the transit clock at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London and his invention of a chronometer escapement and a form of bimetallic compensation balance.
John Arnold was an English watchmaker and inventor.
Charles Frodsham was a distinguished English horologist, establishing the firm of Charles Frodsham & Co, which remains in existence as the longest continuously trading firm of chronometer manufacturers in the world. In January 2018, the firm launched a new chronometer wristwatch, after sixteen years in development. It is the first watch to use the George Daniels double-impulse escapement.
Edward John Dent (1790–1853) was a famous English watchmaker noted for his highly accurate clocks and marine chronometers.
Rupert Thomas Gould was a lieutenant-commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology. He was also an author and radio personality.
Larcum Kendall was a British watchmaker.
A marine chronometer is a precision timepiece that is carried on a ship and employed in the determination of the ship's position by celestial navigation. It is used to determine longitude by comparing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and the time at the current location found from observations of celestial bodies. When first developed in the 18th century, it was a major technical achievement, as accurate knowledge of the time over a long sea voyage was vital for effective navigation, lacking electronic or communications aids. The first true chronometer was the life work of one man, John Harrison, spanning 31 years of persistent experimentation and testing that revolutionized naval navigation.
A chronometer is an extraordinarily accurate mechanical timepiece, with an original focus on the needs of maritime navigation. In Switzerland, timepieces certified by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) may be marked as Certified Chronometer or Officially Certified Chronometer. Outside Switzerland, equivalent bodies, such as the Japan Chronometer Inspection Institute, have in the past certified timepieces to similar standards, although use of the term has not always been strictly controlled.
Edward Martin Burgess FSA FBHI, known as Martin Burgess, was an English horologist and master clockmaker.
Jonathan Betts MBE is Curator Emeritus at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, a horological scholar and author, and an expert on the first marine timekeepers created by John Harrison in the middle of the 18th century. He was formerly Senior Specialist in horology at Greenwich. Between 2016 and 2019 he served on the board of trustees of the Institute of Conservation.
Dent was a London manufacturer of luxury clocks and watches, founded by Edward John Dent. Dent began making watches in 1814, although the Dent triangular trade mark was not registered until 1876. A notable success for the company was winning the contract to make the clock for the new palace of Westminster, which became known as Big Ben.
A nautical chronometer made by Thomas Earnshaw (1749–1828), and once part of the equipment of HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin on his voyage around the world, is held in the British Museum. The chronometer was the subject of one episode of the BBC's series A History of the World in 100 Objects.
Victor Kullberg (1824–1890) was one of London's most famous watchmakers, described by one authority as "one of the most brilliant and successful horologists of the 19th century."
Thomas Frederick Cooper was a well-known Victorian English watchmaker in London who made high quality timepieces, particularly for the American market.
T. Mercer, Chronometer Makers of the World, NAG Press, ISBN9780719803406, (2nd revised edition, 2004).
T. Mercer, Mercer Chronometers, History, Maintenance and Repair, Mayfield Books, ISBN9780954052539, (2003).
T. Mercer, Mercer Chronometers, Radical Tom Mercer and the house he founded, Brant Wright Associates Ltd, Ashford, Kent, ISBN9780903512190, (1978).
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