John Harrison

Hello, my name is John Harrison. I was born a long time ago, on March 24th, 1693, in a small village in England. My father was a carpenter, and I loved working with wood. But my real passion was for things that ticked and tocked—clocks. I taught myself how to make them. In 1713, I built my very first big clock all by myself and was very proud of it.

In my time, there was a very big problem. When sailors were out on the huge ocean, they could get lost very easily. They knew how to sail north and south, but it was almost impossible to know how far east or west they were. This was called the 'longitude problem'. Because of this, many ships crashed. The government wanted to fix this, so in 1714, they announced that they would give a huge prize to whoever could solve it. I had an idea. I thought a special clock that could keep perfect time even on a rocking ship could help sailors find their way.

Building a clock that would work on a ship was very hard. The waves, the salty air, and the changing weather could all stop a normal clock. But I didn't give up. I built my first sea clock, H1, which I finished in 1735. It was very big and heavy, but it worked. I knew I could do even better, so I built H2 and H3. My most famous clock was H4, which I finished in 1759. It was small like a watch you could hold in your hand. In 1761, my son, William, took it on a long sea voyage to Jamaica. It kept nearly perfect time, helping the sailors know exactly where they were.

My invention worked so well that it changed sailing forever. After many years and lots of hard work, I was finally given the prize money. I lived to be 83 years old. Today, my sea clocks, called marine chronometers, are in museums. People remember me as the carpenter who solved one of the biggest puzzles of his time and made the oceans a much safer place to travel.