October 9th, 2014 | RESEARCH
The instrument maker James Short, whose output was exclusively reflecting telescopes, was a sustained and consistent supporter of the clock and watch maker John Harrison. Shortâs specialism placed his work in a tradition that derived from Newtonâs Opticks, where the natural philosopher or mathematician might engage in the mechanical process of making mirrors, and a number of prominent astronomers followed this example in the eighteenth century. However, it proved difficult, if not impossible, to capture and communicate in words the manual skills they had acquired. Harrisonâs biography has similarities with Shortâs but, although he was well received and encouraged in London, unlike Short his mechanical practice did not place him at the centre of the astronomersâ agenda. Harrison became a small part of the growing public interest in experimental demonstration and display, and his timekeepers became objects of exhibition and resort. Lacking formal training, he himself came to be seen as a naive or intuitive mechanic, possessed of an individual and natural âgeniusâ for his work â an idea likely to be favoured by Short and his circle, and appropriate to Shortâs intellectual roots in Edinburgh. The problem of capturing and communicating Harrisonâs skill became acute once he was a serious candidate for a longitude award and was the burden of the specially appointed âCommissioners for the Discovery of Mr Harrisonâs Watchâ, whose members included Short. Now the problem was one of transforming individual genius into a generally useful practice. It was a question that touched on the reputation of Short in the area of his own genius and it was familiar also to the astronomers, men who had engaged with making mirrors, had struggled to systematise and record their methods, and who now, as Commissioners, had to judge whether and how Harrisonâs very individual achievements might be shared.
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Team Members
Jim Bennett, Author, Science Museum, LondonCitation
Identifier Type: DOI
Identifier: 10.15180/140209
Publication: Science Museum Group Journal
Volume: 1
Number: 2
Related URLs
Full Text via Science Museum Group
Tags
Audience: Museum | ISE Professionals
Discipline: Engineering | History | policy | law | Space science | Technology
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research Products
Environment Type: Exhibitions | Museum and Science Center Exhibits