Complete issue of the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1775 containing an interesting biographical article on John Hutchinson (1674-1737), a natural scientist who, in 1712, invented and built a novel chronometer for ascertaining longitude.

Complete issue of the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1775 containing an interesting biographical article on John Hutchinson (1674-1737), a natural scientist who, in 1712, invented and built a novel chronometer for ascertaining longitude.

The article reads 'Some time in the year 1712, Mr. Hutchinson completed a machine of the watch kind, for the discovery of the longitude at sea; it was referred to Sir Isaac Newton and other persons qualified to consider and examine pretensions of this kind, and was by them approved…but, when application was made to parliament, he was by some way or other dropped by those who had promised to support his pretensions.'

The Longitude Prize attracted strong and sometimes acrimonious debate throughout the eighteenth-century. Interestingly, this issue of the Gentleman's Magazine also includes a succinct notice of Atkyn's 1735 voyage to Guinea, wherein a serious effort to determine longitude with watches was attempted. The inclusion of these entries in a popular publication reflects the interest generated by the return of Captain Cook from his second voyage, landing at Portsmouth on 30 July 1775. During the course of the voyage Cook successfully demonstrated the efficacy of the chronometer designed by John Harrison.