A fine and most attractive Regency era marine chronometer by the London maker James Murray, known to have been carried on HMS Fly and then HMS Rattlesnake (see following catalogue items), the two vessels sent by the Admiralty in the 1840s to complete the Australian coastal surveys begun by the Beagle, and which between them carried out significant explorations on the Queensland coast, the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait, as well as the still treacherous Inner Passage.

A fine and most attractive Regency era marine chronometer by the London maker James Murray, known to have been carried on HMS Fly and then HMS Rattlesnake (see following catalogue items), the two vessels sent by the Admiralty in the 1840s to complete the Australian coastal surveys begun by the Beagle, and which between them carried out significant explorations on the Queensland coast, the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait, as well as the still treacherous Inner Passage.

Recorded as "K" in Shadwell's important contemporary book On the Management of Chronometers (1855), this is the only example of such a crucial instrument known to be extant from either the Fly or Rattlesnake voyages. Despite their fundamental importance to survey voyages and their longevity, most of these early instruments are considered lost, marking out the present example as an extremely rare and important survivor.

The tremendous value of the chronometer for accurate mapping had been proved as early as Cook's second voyage, and accurate timekeepers were the fundamental equipment required for any ship being sent on the arduous Australian surveys. Official timekeepers and scientific instruments relating to the golden age of Australian maritime survey voyages are, of course, exceptionally rare: to cite a meaningful example, of the more than 40 (and probably 50) official chronometers which accompanied the three voyages of HMS Beagle, only two are now known, both held by the British Museum, one of which was listed (as no. 91) in Neil Macgregor's A History of the World in 100 Objects.

The maker James Murray flourished in London in the 1820s, received Admiralty awards for the accuracy of his chronometers in 1824 and 1830, and has been called the "distinguished Artist who has had the honour of producing the best instrument ever known" (Tony Mercer, Chronometer Makers of the World). Murray's chronometers are known to have been used on any number of major voyages, including that of Weddell to the Antarctic and Parry to the Northwest Passage.

As the Admiralty tables for this chronometer confirm, it was supplied to the Fly on 7 March 1842, and official Admiralty records show it as only returned for servicing by officers of the Rattlesnake in 1850.

The logical inference from the Admiralty records is that after the return of the Fly to England in 1846 the chronometer was handed directly to the survey voyage destined to continue its work, as might be expected, and therefore saw service on the two great expeditions. There would have been ample opportunity for the hand-over between the return of the Fly in June 1846 and the sailing of the Rattlesnake in December of that year. It was still in use in the First World War, and possibly in the Second as well, as only in 1944 was it returned to a Mrs. K. Jordan-Lloyd.

Blackwood never published an account of the Fly voyage, but the Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of HMS Fly published in 1847 is a marvellous narrative by J.B. Jukes who sailed with him as scientist and naturalist, and whose work on coral formation directly influenced Darwin. Macgillivray, naturalist under Captain Owen Stanley, published his Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake in 1852.