‘A Place for Managing Government Chronometers’: Early Chronometer Service at the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Abstract

This article analyses the early nineteenth-century formation of an institutional framework for the distribution of chronometers in the Royal Navy with particular emphasis on the role played by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. In the early 1820s the observatory was transformed into a storehouse for the majority of government-owned timepieces. This article focuses on the effective collaboration between astronomers, admiralty officials, agents in the naval dockyards and watch makers, in order to provide chronometers to captains and masters to sustain naval operations and foster British navigational developments overall.