Longitude (2000– )

Michael Gambon: John Harrison

Quotes 

• Sir Charles Pelham : How can you tell if a clock is running 5 seconds faster, or slower?

  John Harrison : My own pendulum clock is adjusted to one second a month.

  Sir Charles Pelham : O-ho-ho, no clock can be that accurate.

  John Harrison : Mine can.

• George Graham : One second a month, sir! You're either a liar or a fool. --Who're your makers?

  John Harrison : Myself, and my brother James.

  George Graham : Really? Who were you apprenticed to?

  John Harrison : My father, as was he. I am a carpenter by profession.

  George Graham : A carpenter?!

  John Harrison : My timekeepers are made of wood. I've brought some drawings with me.

  George Graham : I'm sorry, I mistook you. This is a joke, sir, am I right? Mr. Halley seeks to derive some pleasure from this contrivance? Is he here, perhaps, hiding in a corner to watch my performance?

  John Harrison : It is I who am sorry, sir! The fault is mine. It was my impression I was here to see a clockmaker; I find myself in a toy shop by mistake! William!

  [turns to leave] 

• George Graham : Mr. Harrison! Summer and winter... how is it done? How is it done, the compensation?

  John Harrison : I use a pendulum of different metals that work against each other.

  George Graham : Impossible. Doesn't work. I've tried it.

  John Harrison : It is possible. It does work. I've built it.

• Lieutenant John Campbell : I thought only of one thing: a piece of twisted brass spinning. There, look. Look at its little heart still beating. I thought to myself, this'll never happen again. There'll be a machine to tell us where we are. I swore that if I lived, I'd come and find you.

  John Harrison : John, when they were dying, who did your men curse for their misfortune?

  Lieutenant John Campbell : Their God, or their admiral; when you're a foot, there's little difference.

  John Harrison : And if they'd a clock, and the clock didn't work, and the men still died... who would they curse then? When you're young, you think everything's possible. But as you grow older, you discover that it isn't.

  Lieutenant John Campbell : Well then, don't grow older, Mr. Harrison.

• John Harrison : It's not just beautiful, it's divine: that's where the beauty lies, you see. Each note on the scale is calculated by mathematical formula, based on the circumference of a circle, you see.

  Sir Charles Pelham : Uh, almost...

  John Harrison : The step between each note is composed of larger and lesser intervals, each derived from pi. It is divine because for the first time we are listening to music as the Lord intended.

• John Harrison : Impossible, sir. Clock needs a pendulum. Can't take a pendulum to sea.

  Sir Charles Pelham : Not like you to say "impossible," John.

  John Harrison : No, sir.

• Elizabeth Harrison : You've found a way to build this sea-clock, haven't you?

  John Harrison : With God's help it might be possible. --I mean, why did He encourage me to build a perfect timepiece in the first place? So the blacksmith might start work 5 seconds earlier or later? Or was it to give us the ability to explore His creation in safety, to move without fear in the space He's given us to inhabit?

• Lieutenant John Campbell : I sailed in the company of 961 men, sir. 203 returned to England. Of the 760 who died, only 48 were killed by enemy action.

  John Harrison : And the rest?

  Lieutenant John Campbell : Disease. Despair. We were lost: weeks on end without sight of land, fresh food, water... Although much of the time we were within 6 hours' sailing of Juan Fernandez; but we mistook our position... didn't know it. I saw more men die than any Roman emperor. Men who you'll remember, and who remembered you: John Sprague; Lieutenant Draper; the messboys, Ned and Sed, didn't even make 14. We all heard about the Orford and how your machine performed, as we sailed hopelessly on, heaving man after man over the side.

• John Harrison : I'm afraid you must excuse me, but I should go back on deck. The air in here is...

  John Campbell : Poisonous? You'll get used to it. Most people don't notice it after the first couple of years.

• John Harrison : You've seen how the watch has performed in the test. It's not perfect, but what if I could make it so? What if I could make a timepiece no bigger than the span of a man's hand, that could be taken to sea? Now wouldn't that be a practical solution?

  [cut to 20th century] 

  Rupert Gould : Harrison's fourth machine, by reason alike of its beauty and its accuracy, must take pride of place as the most famous chronometer that ever has been or ever will be made. But the journey from his third machine, which you see behind me, to his fourth (thank you), is one of the most extraordinary mysteries of horology. Faced as he was by a seemingly insuperable problem of centrifugal forces, Harrison took a daring and lateral leap. It is as though an aeronautical engineer suddenly ceased development on a new aircraft and instead adapted the technology to make his bicycle fly to France.

• John Harrison : It is 25 years since I first had the honor to address this board, under the chairmanship of Dr. Edmund 'Alley. And since that time I've worked with only one ambition: to satisfy your requirements as laid down by Act of Parliament, for the discovery of longitude at sea. It is with both great pride and honor, and humility, that I stand here today with my son, after his great triumph.

  Dr. Bliss : Thank you, Mr. Harrison, yes, thank you. Now. I have asked you here to inform you of the resolution of the Board: that, firstly, the *brief* calculations of Mr. William Harrison are to be sent for computation; and the instruments used in those observations are also to be sent for examination. The board will then consider these reports at a further meeting, the date of which will be announced in due course. That will be all for now, gentlemen.

  John Harrison : Sir, I am an old man, and an old man can sometimes find his senses unexpectedly weakened. There is perhaps an element of your argument that I have misunderstood, or even misheard. My watch lost... lost *one minute, 53 and a half seconds* after *81 days at sea*! As witnessed and signed in the, in the papers you have before you, which you seem so keen to put away. I have fulfilled the terms most exactly, as laid down in the Act of Queen Anne, and I demand that you consider the question of my reward.

  Dr. Bliss : Mr. Harrison, I am not a commissioner of the gaming board, here to settle some bet! I am a scientist bent on investigation of a most serious subject.

• William Harrison : Would it be possible to set out more explicitly what the Board requires, so that we might be prepared for it?

  Lord Morton : *No, sir -- it would not*! It is not your business, sir, to limit the inquiry of this board, but to satisfy it!

  John Harrison : It is not my business, *sir*, to explain the workings of a lifetime to a group of *dog-collared university book-swallowers* who wouldn't know the difference between a *balance spring* and a *bedside pan*! The thirty years I've stood before this board, I've never once had the occasion to talk to anyone who knew anything about what I was actually doing, any sense of the mechanisms I've created! But I carried on... trusting that if I fulfilled the Act of Queen Anne, I'd get my just rewards. *I have* fulfilled that Act... I have made such a mechanism. Give me my prize, and I'll use the money to build a, a factory... make a 'undred watches, a thousand, each one the same. But I will not, as long as I've got a drop of English blood in me body, I'll not dance to the tune of a group of ignorant *schoolboys*!

• John Harrison : You know, the strange thing is, I want to build another one. Taking it apart and putting it together again, I can see improvements.

• [The Board, having paid half the reward, takes possession of all the clocks] 

  John Harrison : The machines are ready for collection. I will need a certificate from you that they're in good order.

  Reverend Nevil Maskelyne : I am not sure I'm a good judge of that, sir.

  John Harrison : For once I agree with you.

  Reverend Nevil Maskelyne : I can state that they appear to be in good order; I think that will suffice.

  John Harrison : I can state as a fact they're in perfect order.

  Reverend Nevil Maskelyne : That will not be necessary.

  John Harrison : And I will need it to be understood that when they left my property that was the case. And that you are entirely responsible for their safety from this moment on!

  Reverend Nevil Maskelyne : I accept that responsibility. Now what is their normal method of transport?

  William Harrison : Boat!

  Reverend Nevil Maskelyne : Do not bandy words with me, sir.

  William Harrison : I am serious. They should go to Greenwich by barge, not some old cart like a butcher'd carry a bag of bones in!

• John Harrison : I may not be spared to complete another watch, but I've begun one. It will not, gentleman, be a copy, because I am mindful of the Act of Queen Anne, to which I've clung for over 50 years like a, like a shipwrecked sailor to a barrel -- "to be practical," and that's been my gospel and my creed. I have an idea that the heat compensation must be within the balance of the watch and not around it. And this morning I made this.

  [He shows a heat-compensated balance wheel.] 

  John Harrison : I tried the idea in my first sea clock, over 40 years ago. I failed. I didn't undertand it; so much I didn't understand. A compensating balance wheel will simplify the adjustment of the machine, so others may make my watches more easily... should God grant me the time to complete my labours.