Larcum Kendall

Larcum Kendall ( born September 21, 1719 Charlbury, Oxfordshire, † November 22, 1790 in London) was a British watchmaker.

The Board of Longitude, the Commission to develop a method for accurately determining the longitude and commissioned him to recreate John Harrison's brilliant fourth model a usable for navigation at sea clock and continues to develop as possible. The original would in fact had an astronomical price, around 30 % of the value of a ship.

The first of Kendall under this contract in 1769 finished model (time piece or timekeeper ) was an exact copy of the Harrison model 4 (H4 ), cost £ 500 and is now known as K1. James Cook tested the clock on his second Pacific voyage and after initial skepticism was full of praise: " Kendall's pocket watch exceeded all expectations," he reported in 1775 the Admiralty. Three other watches, constructions John Arnold had not withstood the rigors of the same journey. " Pocket " is a misnomer, by modern standards: The clock had 13 cm in diameter and weighed 1.45 kg. K1 accompanied more than thirty years of British ships to Australia.

Kendall pledged to build simplifications by a similar clock at 200 pounds, was commissioned and presented the 1771 K2. First, she received 1773 John Phipps for his expedition to search for a Northwest Passage, then it was used in North America. She worked far less accurate than the original. William Bligh recorded in 1787 in the log of a Bounty Gang, a daily inaccuracy, which had fluctuated irregularly between 1.1 and three seconds.

The clock became famous because of the mutiny on the Bounty. She stayed on board and did not return until after an odyssey to England: In Pitcairn she earned an American whaling captain for a trifle, but he brought them only up to the Spanish Juan Fernández Islands, the Governor detained him for no reason and the clock retained. From the estate of a Chilean mule driver, she earned last for 52 pounds and 10 shillings a British captain who in 1843 made ​​a gift of the crown.

Also, Kendall's third and final attempt at self-construction, K3, completed in 1774 at 100 pounds, did not have the required accuracy, as Cook had to realize that they mitführte addition to K1 on his last journey. Nevertheless, it was still used on Matthew Flinders trip to Australia in 1801.

Kendall was how the K1 testified that a first-class craftsmen, but not a good designer. Better developments came from John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw. John Arnold's construction was so accurate that he could dominate in 1780 the word chronometer for them. However, it lacked Arnold's instruments of robustness.

Only Thomas Earnshaw models sat a little later by the world. Arnold and Earnshaw had gone their own way in the design, and both reached in contrast to Kendall the required accuracy. Only the price of around £ 80 to the Earnshaw devices could be made ​​, although still too expensive for the normal commercial shipping, facilitated its spread.

After Kendall K3 chronometer built on the model of Arnold.

Be kept K1, K2 and K3 in The Old Royal Observatory, part of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.